


Murderous Days and Cosmogone Dreams

by Ywain Penbrydd (penbrydd)



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Fallen London | Echo Bazaar, Shadow Unit, The Lone Gunmen (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Clay Men (Fallen London) - Freeform, Crossover, Dreams and Nightmares, Head Injury, Jack of Smiles case, M/M, Parabola, Parabolan Cats, Partial Mind Control, Serial Killers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-17
Updated: 2021-02-28
Packaged: 2021-03-15 08:35:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 41,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28810458
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penbrydd/pseuds/Ywain%20Penbrydd
Summary: The Masters chose the Sixth City, and against all advice, a deal was made for Washington DC. Reid's team are struggling to adjust to the Neath and its unusual inhabitants, and also to the apparent loss of the rest of the country. On top of this, a killing spree is stretching across the city, with apparently unrelated people slashing complete strangers, with similar techniques but widely varying knives. It's only with the assistance of a Fifth City team of experts in unusual crimes that they can even begin to approach the case from the right angles.But first, a brief head injury, sustained in the fall...[Tags will change as the story progresses.]
Relationships: Richard "Ringo" Langly/Spencer Reid
Comments: 86
Kudos: 8
Collections: The Good; The Morally Ambiguous; and The WTF





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [ambiguously_anomalous](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ambiguously_anomalous) collection. 



> > What becomes of our protagonists as DC becomes the Sixth Stolen City? With whom did the Masters make a deal? What great love story met its final twist in the Neath? The maps are already changing, the names of streets and places, once so orderly, are strange and new, though in another twenty years, no one will think to question them. But, only the city has changed, the isles and outlying lands remain the same, if perhaps not quite where anyone recalls them being. The 12:15 to Hell still runs from somewhere, and Red Honey is still smuggled in from the Isle of Cats. Somewhere out there, the Fathomking still reigns. Mr Eaten's story still burns to be told, like a flickering candle in a vat of lacre.
>> 
>> Does Chaz dream of Parabola? Is Langly hunting for the Stone Pigs? What would Reid find in Arbor? To whom do the cats bring their secrets? Who is persistently wooed by devils? And who is the first to learn death isn't quite as meaningful as it once was?
> 
>   
> Yes, I broke canon. And then I broke canon some more. It's a four-way crossover in response to a _kinkmeme prompt_. Something had to give. Comment moderation is on, because it is always on when I do crossovers. Yes, there are two spellings of Langly/Langley, and both of them are correct, as one of them is a name and the other one is a place and the title that belongs to the place. I may or may not ever get around to explaining that, but just roll with it. Also, as a warning, the prologue is _short_. 

The dog was staring at him. He wasn't sure what had happened, or where he was, but the dog was definitely staring at him.  
  
He was lying down, he thought, and he wasn't sure why. His head was turned to the side, which was why he could see the dog, which was still staring at him. Its eyes weren't the same colour, he thought, as the nonsense under his fingers turned into hot sand.  
  
Where the hell was he?  
  
The dog's eyes reflected something that wasn't him, that wasn't here. He knew that voice, those sounds.  
  
_"Spencer? Come on, open your eyes. Stay with me." She looked afraid, dark hair tied back so it did nothing to hide the terror in her eyes. He could feel her hand on his face, the lights and ceiling white behind her. Where was he?_  
  
He blinked and she was gone. The tan and grey dog was still staring at him, with its strange eyes. It cocked its head, and he wasn't sure if that was an entirely friendly look, but he thought it might be, as the desert blew in out of the strangely vacant mists. He knew desert. He knew _this_ desert, in particular, even if the sun was strangely orange. Not orange, but orange-like. Orangey. Why was he lying in the desert in Nevada?  
  
He caught the dog's eyes again, and his mind flooded with another place.  
  
_"Spence? Hey, there you are..." She smiled at him, and he knew her, he recognised the way her golden hair fell. He knew the smell and the white wall behind her. He could hear the sirens, and-- "No, no. Don't try to get up. Spence, don't--"_  
  
_She looked away, shouting toward an open door he hadn't noticed. "He's bleeding again!"_  
  
_His hand was wet, and as she broke eye contact,_ he was looking at the dog again.  
  
That wasn't a dog, he realised, as it loped toward where he lay. That was a coyote. He was out in the middle of the desert with a coyote, and he had no idea how he'd gotten here, how he was getting back, or why he was having so much trouble moving. But, it had to be a dream, didn't it? He knew those women, and obviously, they knew him. He couldn't remember their names. He wouldn't have remembered his own name, but they kept calling him by it. But, they weren't here. Here, he was alone with a coyote that seemed to be watching him cautiously as it crept in from where it had stopped, much closer than where it had started.  
  
He was hallucinating. That had to be it. He'd been hit on the head, which made a strange and terrible sense because of something he couldn't quite remember, and now he was hallucinating, which probably meant his brain was swelling.  
  
And then the coyote spoke to him, and he was sure of it.  
  
"How did you get here? You don't smell like honey..." it asked, in a voice that sounded almost like his own -- a similar accent, similar pacing, similar tone. His, but not his.  
  
"Honey?" he asked, confused.  
  
"What do you need, sugar?" the coyote joked, yipping a short laugh. "Most people come in dreams. They drink honey if they want to pay attention for it. But you..."  
  
He watched the coyote circle him, sniffing, and he wondered where this was going. "I don't eat a lot of honey. I think I've been hit in the head."  
  
The coyote dropped to its haunches and sat up very straight, looking around the desert as if it expected to see something. "You're dying, aren't you."  
  
It wasn't quite a question, but he answered it as if it was. "I don't know. I keep seeing... I think it's a hospital. Someone I know said I was bleeding. I can't remember..."  
  
"We need to get you out of here. Being here will kill you, in your condition. Maybe for good." The coyote got up, muttering to itself, as it gently seized the cuff of one pant leg in its teeth and started pulling. "Being in two places at once was never a good idea, but your kind never were great at good ideas. The next time you want to visit, use a mirror, like a rational person, would you? I think they've put in a railway station somewhere around here, too, but who knows if the train still runs, now. Minding my own business in Veilgarden, and they dropped a city on us. I bet they know in Ealing. If you can even get to Ealing from out there, now."  
  
He had no idea what the coyote was talking about, and he was extremely sure of that. But, the coyote was a hallucination, so he wasn't sure he was supposed to know. Maybe it was better that he didn't. "If there's a railway station, shouldn't I just get on the train?"  
  
"No, you have to go back the way you came. You can't go back without a body, and yours is still out there, but I have to keep you away from the snakes and the cats and the devils -- yes, devils, I can hear you thinking that -- until we can find you and put you back where you belong." The coyote stopped dragging and the orange sun gave way to a lovely cedar-scented shadow.  
  
He could hear the sound of cloth being pulled away from something, and the coyote talking to someone else.  
  
"Byers! Byers, damn it, I need help out there!"  
  
No one replied. The sound of cloth repeated, followed by an alarmed squawk that sounded nothing like the coyote.  
  
"Hey! This is my _bathroom_! Can you not? What the hell are you yelling for Byers for, anyway?"  
  
"You'll do, Your Lordshit," the coyote teased.  
  
"That's Lord _ship_ , you mirror-eyed menace. What the hell do _you_ want?"  
  
"You remember how sure your people were that the Sixth City was coming? It just fell. I have a survivor -- well, half a survivor. I need you to find the other half before the devils or the snakes do."  
  
"You could do it faster if you _used_ the snakes."  
  
"The snakes will take him!" The coyote turned back to him, leaning over him. "Can you sit up? My friend needs to see your face."  
  
"I don't think--" His eyes caught the coyote's again. He could hear the coyote as he fell, suddenly. Up through the reflection, down into nothing, out into everything.  
  
_"Do something, you obstinate prick! I'm losing him! Not again!"_  
  
Everything was white, when he opened his eyes, and in the distance something was beeping erratically.


	2. Six weeks later...

Fewer things had the names they'd once had, he noticed, as time passed. Like the hairline fracture to his brow and the recurring nosebleeds, this was an annoyance, but not an insurmountable challenge. Some shops kept on, but the labelled windows were more often smashed, until the shops gave up the identities they'd held or closed entirely. Most of the city was fine, though, aside from the missing street signs and the return of former residents of the area. Sailors, or 'Zailors' as they insisted they were, came into the docks insisting they'd been bound for London and carrying shipments of implausible goods from places that hadn't existed, before. Steam-ships, mostly, though some had engines no one wanted to question too closely. And no one talked about what became of the first wave of suicides to have leapt into the Potomac. Was that even the Potomac, any more? People had begun to call it the Stolen River.  
  
Reid couldn't be sure of things he'd always taken for granted. What he could be sure of was that his mother was still in Boston, where he'd had her moved, shortly before this happened. What had happened was still in question, to some degree, but the city had very obviously been moved by forces far outside anything he'd imagined could be real -- not so much as a hole remained in the roof of the cavern that DC had dropped into. And the Masters of the Bazaar claimed the city had been bought and sold for love. Whose love? Love of what, exactly?  
  
The Masters were strange men -- he'd been assigned to profile them, as a background to the work the team was doing on a killer the old Londoners called Jack of Smiles. Jack reminded him of Mr Scratch, in some ways, if only because the actual murders were committed by a variety of people who had been otherwise normal until they acted out the same signature killing over and over. Probably drugs and brainwashing, though he didn't have the background to determine what native chemicals or methods might be in use, here. But, the Masters...  
  
The Masters were faceless, in public. Tall, hunchbacked men in massive cloaks, hoods pulled down to hide their faces. Each was called by the symbol he ruled, as far as Reid could tell -- Mr Onions* controlled the majority of the food trade, Mr Wines had the trade in wines and liqueurs, Mr Inks controlled the trade in literature and data, Mr Spices was obvious enough, though Reid suspected this Master had also taken over the drug trade. They ruled the city, they claimed, now that it had been sold to them, but once the city learned the rules, they might leave the ruling to an elected mayor, and wasn't that kind of them. But, love, in all its forms, had become a strange and forbidden currency of sorts. Love stories, most of all, were heavily taxed and strictly censored, but rumour had it some of the Masters were paying exorbitant rates for certain very particular types of love stories.  
  
He came around the corner to the coffeehouse he never remembered the name of -- not that he'd been sure of it before the Fall, but now it was somehow even more nameless than it had been -- and found a tall man in a large black coat taping a flower to the corner of the building. The coat fluttered strangely, as if touched by a wind that wasn't there, and Reid stopped moving just long enough to catch the man's attention.  
  
Their eyes met, and Reid thought of the coyote he'd dreamed, when the city fell.  
  
"You look like I should know you," the tall man offered, cautiously, and then joked, "Come here often?"  
  
The voice was the same, and Reid recoiled slightly. "Almost every day since we were still on the surface. I think I do know you... Are you a medic? I saw... someone who looked like you, just after the city fell."  
  
"No, I'm, ah... I'm not a medic. But, I may have been there, when you fell." The tall man cleared his throat and squinted awkwardly, almost apologetically. "Spencer, right?"  
  
"Dr Spencer Reid. I'm incredibly embarrassed that I don't know your name, now." Reid ducked his head and squeezed his eyes shut for a split second. "I remember you... or your voice anyway. You probably saved my life. I don't know how to thank you. You saved me, and then you just ... disappeared. But, there were probably a lot more people who needed help."  
  
"You're the only one who ended up on my doorstep." The tall man paused, before he introduced himself, as if he wasn't sure who he was, or who to be. "Dr Charles Villette; mathematician, not medic. Please, call me Chaz."  
  
"Chaz, then. Thank you for saving my life." Reid nodded deeply, his eyes drifting back to the violet still taped to the wall. "Do I ask what you're doing here, if you haven't come for the coffee?"  
  
Chaz looked over his shoulder and realised he hadn't blocked the flower when he'd turned around. "I lost a friend, here. We grew up together, sort of. When the lacre drained into the streets, I couldn't get to her. She drowned in it. And then the city fell, and..."  
  
"You're a Londoner, then?" Reid looked surprised. The accent wasn't at all what he'd have expected.  
  
"Technically. I was here during the tenure of the Fifth City, before the majority of London fled through the Avid Horizon, never to return. Some of us stayed behind, but the Queen went, so London went. But, that was a hundred years ago. It took a hundred years to declare the city dead and steal a new one. London barely lasted half that long. Spices was furious -- they loved London like nothing else. Considered it a betrayal, but tried to run away with the city. They ended up stuck here with the rest of us. The original Masters are almost all gone, now, and the ones that remain are... not all the same ones who stole London." Chaz shook his head. "Not what you asked. Violet was a prophet of the Mountain, when we were kids. She still was, when she grew up, but the world's a different place, after that. I was one of the last friends she had, from when we were young. I came here to remember her. Maybe I came here trying to find the new prophet. I lost her that day, and I found you. I tried to find her today, and I found you. And, ah, excuse me for saying it, but you don't look much like a prophet of Stone."  
  
"And I'm pretty sure I'm not, so that's a good thing." Reid's eyebrows arced upward. "Would you let me buy you a cup of coffee, or would you rather be alone?"  
  
"I'm never going to turn down a cup of darkdrop. Especially if this place still has surface sugar." Chaz gestured toward the door, further up the building. "So, enough about me and London, what about you and Washington?"  
  
"I'm not actually that interesting. I'm a federal agent, and I used to review for several journals, but that's gotten a little more awkward since the fall. Not all of them fell, the ones that did have had to change their names, the post is still... ah... It's seen better days. I spend a great deal of time drinking coffee and flipping through large stacks of paper. Sometimes I arrest someone, though it's been a little difficult since the fall -- so many things are assault, and not murder, when the victim doesn't stay dead. It's very hard to call someone a serial killer when they technically haven't killed anyone. And, of course, my team can't be called out any more, and very little happens inside the city." Reid shrugged and shook his head in obvious annoyance, as he held the door open for Chaz. "Except for this Jack of Smiles case..."  
  
Chaz rolled his eyes. "I've been after the Jacks for fifty years. There's not one Jack."  
  
"They're drugged and given commands by the real jack." Reid nodded as they stood in line. "We've gotten that far."  
  
"It's so much weirder than that. Wait until we're sitting down, and I'll tell you about the Jacks." Chaz listened to the woman in front of them fumble her way through an order. The Fall had changed this place a lot, for its residents, even if he was still bitter that it had landed on his home, more or less. One of his homes. One of his closest friends. "So, federal agent... That's some kind of police, right?"  
  
"Something like it. We're law enforcement, but at a different level. I'm not even sure my job will continue existing, now that there's no rest of the country, but the Jacks seem to suggest there's always a need for criminal profiling." Reid stopped to order his coffee and stepped aside while Chaz did the same. The barista gave him a curious look and a half-smile, as if she thought the two of them were a different kind of 'together' than they were, and he shook his head at her, subtly.  
  
Chaz watched the exchange and raised his eyebrows at the woman. "We've just met! ... And extra sugar in mine. Extra extra. Honey's fine, if you're rationing. I'm used to the honey."  
  
"You tried to tell me something about honey," Reid observed, as he paid for their drinks, "but I don't think I understood what you were talking about, then."  
  
"Prisoner's Honey, not the honey you put in coffee." Chaz laughed easily. "It's a drug. It's also literally honey, made from a very specific kind of rose. It causes... the kind of problems you were having at the time, in an overdose. But, as noted, other things can also cause that particular problem. Like dying in one of those potentially irreparable ways."  
  
"And why am I not dead?" Reid asked, picking up his coffee and turning to look for a free table. Foolish, of course. At this hour, they were almost all free tables. Everyone, including him, in theory, was here to pick up their coffee and go to work.  
  
"Feel-good answer or honest answer?" Chaz asked. He nodded deeply to the barista and followed Reid to a table.  
  
"An honest answer, Dr Villette." Reid's eyes found the mismatched, oddly-reflective eyes of the man across the table, lingering for a moment.  
  
"Honestly, I have no idea." Chaz shrugged and his coat fluttered in implausible ways. "We thought we lost you."  
  
"We? I thought I heard another voice. You interrupted someone...?" The memories were blurry, but Reid retained some sense of the events, bizarre as they were.  
  
"Lord Langly of Langley Hall, one of the best Silverers in the High Wilderness. If you want to talk to him, you have to make it through his mansion. People spend years trying. I accidentally tripped and fell into one of his bathrooms, on a jaunt, and he hasn't been rid of me since." Chaz sipped his coffee as if this were a perfectly normal thing to say. "But, you were... We needed to find where you belonged, and the fastest way for me to do that was to enlist the help of Lord Langly. He has one of the most complete networks I've ever had the pleasure to work with, and if anyone could figure out where you were supposed to be going, it was him."  
  
"I'm... I'd taken a fairly serious blow to the head, just before you found me. Members of my team tell me I was caught under a falling lamppost which would've been worse if it hadn't also crushed my car, and they had me taken to the hospital immediately." Reid turned his coffee between two fingers, the cup still on the table. "What I can't figure out is how we'd have met, if I was with them the whole time. Clearly, though, you were there. It's why I thought you might have been one of the nurses or hospital staff. But, you claim you're not, and that I was also lost, somehow."  
  
"Welcome to the Neath," Chaz said, holding up his hands. "You've already noticed that dead people don't always stay dead, in the ways you're accustomed to them doing. This is not the same, but it is related. Tell me, have you met any of the people who lived here, before? Besides me."  
  
"Some. They came in from the sea, expecting London. There's an angry young woman who won't take her sunglasses off, who stands on the corner, by my apartment, and yells about the sun. Several people have started meeting at the patisserie down the street, all of them bandaged heavily or wearing big scarves. The owner says they always buy tea, but never drink it, and they speak a language she's never heard before. I approached one -- I speak several languages -- but we were reduced to hand signals. I asked if the tea was good, and they told me they didn't know, but they liked the atmosphere. At least that's what I think they said..." Reid shrugged one shoulder. "Obviously, a great many people who lived here before us were deeply traumatised. I can understand that, given the death toll. There are some deep-seated beliefs about the world that I'm not sure how much credence I can lend, given the circumstances."  
  
"A wise man one told me the best place for a lie was between two truths. Some of what you're hearing isn't true, but a great deal of it either is true or is close enough that you should mind it, anyway. I know the Duchess still lives -- she's from the Second City, if you really want some perspective. But, she's not much for visitors. The Gracious Widow will be moving back toward the docks, as the city settles -- there's a Fourth City perspective. And I can tell you a great deal about the Fifth, but I didn't fall with it, like they did, with their cities. I believe everyone who fell with London is gone, either to Albion, the Tomb Colonies, or the Far Shore. But, the Neath is bigger than your city, and it has its own rules and its own truths. There are things down here that I've come to understand couldn't exist on the Surface, and they're going to be confusing and frightening. The Bazaar, of course, being the most unignorable."  
  
"I've been avoiding the Bazaar," Reid admitted. "I've been able to get most of what I need in the rest of the city. In my neighbourhood, even."  
  
"As long as the owners are purchasing from the Bazaar, that may be allowed to continue. There were some shops that held onto their places outside the Bazaar and its sidestreets, in London. They were all licensed by the Bazaar, though."  
  
"You still haven't explained how we met," Reid pointed out, coffee back in his hands and not quite all the way to his mouth.  
  
"No, I haven't." Chaz sat back, shifting uncomfortably until he got his coat to settle around the chair. "But, I will. If I tell you without explaining the Neath, you'll think I'm mad. I've been reading your newspapers, since most of London's are no more, and they're quite an insight into what things are like, on the Surface, and how little of what is normal, here, your people are willing to believe. But, it's only been a few weeks. You're just now finishing the most critical repairs needed on civic structures. Your people haven't had a chance to really explore and take the time to understand the place, yet. I promise, you'll get used to it after a couple of years. It took me a couple of years."  
  
"I thought you were born in London."  
  
"No, no. I _lived_ in London, but I was born ... elsewhere." Chaz nodded in the direction of the harbour. "Obviously, the Stolen River leads to the Zee. Yes, the Zee, with a 'z', and I have never gotten a straight answer about why the Surface has seas, and we have the Zee, but that's how it is. And there's just one Zee, the Unterzee. At least that anyone knows about, but that's a matter of exploration, I think. Maybe a matter of successfully coming back from exploration... But, as you'd expect, there's islands out there, and other continents, and not all of them are populated by people you'd recognise as being from the Surface. And that's because some of them aren't. Some of them are, and they're profoundly changed by what they've encountered, but some of them have no heritage at all from the Surface of your world. Like the Masters, not that I'll be discussing them in too much detail -- they have ears everywhere -- but, those in the know claim they're from the High Wilderness. There's a place to the west, across the continent, that London called Hell, because it's where the devils come from. Are they devils as the Church expected them to be, or are they devils just because they frightened the people of London? I'll never know -- I'm too young to have watched it happen, and so many texts are forbidden and destroyed, it's hard to tell where one belief began in the ruins of another."  
  
He paused, eyes finding Reid's and holding them. "Do you see, now? The truth is many things, and even I don't know all of it."  
  
"The truth is always more things than are immediately apparent," Reid agreed, cautiously. "So, you're telling me a story of British Imperialism. London fell, and the Empire continued its expansion into the Neath, instead of across the globe."  
  
"More or less, yeah." Chaz nodded. "The people of the Neath, obviously, didn't take this very well. London didn't successfully conquer much, here, but it definitely got into international politics with both boots, and very politely picked fights with the Khaganians -- that's the people descended from the Fourth City -- and the Tigers of Port Carnelian, to the south. And I'm waiting until the Tigers bring the rest of the Labyrinth back from Parabola. I know the Tiger Keeper managed to escape with at least some of the exhibits. The Third Coil was probably-- Well, nevermind the Third Coil. You'll see when they come back."  
  
"Escaped? I'm assuming this labyrinth was on the edge of the city, then. You said your friend didn't make it, and I know the majority of Londoners were killed in the Fall." Reid let the 'Tigers' thing pass. It was probably a slang reference Dr Villette wasn't sure of the origins of.  
  
"Well, that's the thing about Parabola. It wouldn't have mattered where they were, as long as they had a means of access." Chaz cleared his throat. "I'm going to stop talking about that for a moment, and I'm going to describe some things that I saw, that I think you might have seen, when we were last together. We were in the mists, first, and you kept staring at me like you weren't sure you could see me. And as soon as you focused, it was a desert with an orange sun. We talked a little, and I asked if you'd taken honey to get there, and once we'd established you hadn't, I took you home with me. You couldn't seem to sit up, so you probably just saw the ceiling. You probably smelled the ceiling -- it's cedar, from the ruins of the First City, because I can't stand the smell of roses, and roses are almost inescapable in some parts of Parabola."  
  
"I remember thinking there was a cave, because it was darker than outside, but yes -- the cedar ceiling." Reid nodded, somewhat reassured that he hadn't just hallucinated the whole thing. Of course, whether that was actually reassuring... "I remember looking at you and seeing a coyote, instead of a person. And the mountains in the distance were upside down. But, by the time we got to your house, at least some things were making sense."  
  
"A coyote!" Chaz laughed, not quite looking at Reid, and cleared his throat of some lingering awkwardness. "Well, people do see strange things, in Parabola." He paused. "I'd like to take you back there, just to visit. The right way, this time, so you can see where I found you."  
  
"You still haven't explained--"  
  
"You're not going to believe me."  
  
"You're not really giving me a reason to," Reid argued, calmly, coolly. "Dr Villette, mathematician, who has been hunting Jack of Smiles for half a century, despite looking maybe thirty-something, and lives on an island called Parabola that can only be accessed by yet unexplained means that provide near instant transport, and can make a person be in two places at once. You can see where maybe I'm not inclined to take all of this at face value."  
  
"I have more than one doctorate. People just generally find 'mathematician' less frightening than 'alienist'. I do a great deal of work in statistical observations about the frequency, type, and severity of violent mental disorders among the varying populations of the Neath. Or at least I did, until the University got flattened by your city. Not that I really worked at the University, any more. I was a crap academic, if you'll pardon my Danish."  
  
"Dutch," Reid pointed out with a smile.  
  
"You're the linguist, not me." Chaz tipped his head and went on, lips tight with annoyance. "I still took mail there, though. I had a few sympathetic friends in the department mailroom, after the seventh time my thesis burst into flames, because the theory was solid, but the application was still skewed. I gave up on that degree. I just didn't want it badly enough to risk madness and spontaneous combustion. But, the University was a point of contact for my consulting work. I was something of a specialist in inexplicably bizarre crimes, until about six weeks ago. But, that is why I know about Jack -- the Jacks -- and the Vake, and any number of other investigations into things that really shouldn't have been happening that may actually have ended, now that your city fell on them. But, not the Jacks, which is not surprising, even if it is a damnable shame."  
  
He knocked back his coffee as punctuation, and smacked the cup onto the table. "So, yes. I'm a mathematician. I work on statistical representations of extremely unlikely violent events, and how to predict where and when they might repeat. And now, I am an extremely unemployed mathematician, in a foreign city that fell on my best friend, talking to some fancied up inspector about why the fundamental facets of the world I grew up in are unbelievable."  
  
"I've only been here for six weeks. The Metro just started working again last week, and my car got totalled in the Fall, so I've seen a grand total of the same few miles over and over again. You're right; I don't have the experience to determine what's normal here, but I know that what you're describing isn't normal _where I'm from_ , and that's the only context I have." It wasn't an apology, but an explanation would have to do, Reid decided. He still wasn't sure the man wasn't quite mad, as rational as he sounded. The explanation really was fairly solid -- he, too, had multiple doctorates and applied more than one of them to his job... which... "We're in very similar lines of work, you and I, given what you describe. My work is primarily criminal profiling, which is, at the briefest, examining the details of a crime to establish the, ah, mental and circumstantial traits of the person who committed it. One of my degrees is in abnormal psychology, which is what we've come to call alienism on the Surface, so similar field, similar perspective. If you'd be open to the idea, I'd like to bring you to meet the rest of my team. We could really use some more _local_ assistance with, as you put it, the Jacks."  
  
"I'm putting conditions on my assistance, and those conditions involve me assisting you even more. The Jacks are a Neathy problem, and I'll need to introduce you to someone who can explain parts of it -- someone you'll find it much easier to believe than me." Chaz had a cautious look about him. "Someone more directly affected by those things-- Not a Jack! But, a less-murderous colleague of mine. I would prefer to avoid taking your entire team, as that sounds like a lot of people, but I would ask you to choose one person, two at the most, that you believe would be interested in some of the, ah, Neathier parts of the Neath, that you feel safe with, and who would be unlikely to respond to unusual things by attempting to murder them, first. The last may sound a bit presumptuous, but you've never met a London constable."  
  
"Where would we be going to meet this person?" Reid asked, just as cautious. "As you keep reminding me, most of the places you once frequented are no longer there."  
  
"Moloch Street. The railways survived, and it's one of the last remaining outposts of London, despite technically being an outpost of Hell. We won't be going to the Brass Embassy, if you've heard of it, but there's a nice steakhouse by the station that won't take my friend too poorly." One corner of Chaz's mouth curled in a wry smile. "It's a very public place. I may have to make reservations."  
  
Reid nodded. "I'd like that, thank you. I'm not sure the Metro goes to ... Moloch Street? But, then, I'm not sure what any of the streets are called, any more. I know what they were called. I can still identify most of them, by their old names, but the new names ... I don't think they've standardised, yet. I'm also not sure why we need new names for all the streets. They were perfectly sensibly named." He shook his head in annoyance. "But, yes. Moloch Street. I'm ... sure we'll find it."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * Mr Hearts/Apples is confirmed to have left for the High Wilderness in Sunless Skies. Masters change their names between cities, take over each others' positions silently when one falls, and we know they're able to reproduce, so Mr Onions may be someone you know or someone you don't, but it's not Mr Apples.


	3. Chapter 3

"You're going _where_?" Prentiss asked, looking up from the file on the latest Jack of Smiles killing. "What's that in regular streets?"  
  
"Moloch Street. The Moloch Street Station, in fact. It's part of London, out on the west edge of the city. Apparently, that's where Hell's embassy is, and we've been warned not to take offence at the devils in the street, or the other more... colourful inhabitants of the Upper River, who are starting to come back down, again, on the train." Reid nodded and rifled through his desk. The office had been remarkably unharmed by the fall, which was more than he could say for some parts of the city, namely the ones the Bazaar had replaced, or maybe had just distorted until it fit between them. "I met a man while I was picking up coffee, who used to be a ... well, functionally a criminal profiler and statistician consulting for London's police, and he's offered us insights into the Jack of Smiles case. I'm supposed to pick one or two of you to accompany me to a meeting in a steakhouse on Moloch Street, to which he's going to bring a colleague whom he claims can explain some of the, ah, 'Neathier' aspects of the case, like why we can't nail down the drug being used."  
  
"Wait, stop." JJ held up a hand and studied Reid curiously. "I know the people from the boats talk about devils, but that's ... metaphorical, isn't it? It's just a gang or something, right?"  
  
"I have no idea what the devils are, aside from the fact that they have a kingdom to the west and they take the train in to Moloch Street, like everyone else living in the surviving parts of what came before us. They are, at the least, foreign diplomats who maintained an embassy in London, and they're said to have some unusual features, like yellow eyes and pointed teeth. Yellow eyes aren't that unusual, and pointed teeth are a cultural affectation in some places. We've already met people from the colonies, and it's likely these devils are just more of the same. I believe Dr Villette was concerned that we might be frightened by some of the unusual body modifications and styles of dress in that part of the city, but I've assured him we're reasonably well-mannered." Reid finally found what he'd been looking for and slipped it into his pocket. "I'd like to take a copy of the casefile, and I want to bring Rossi and Lewis with me, as I think of all of us, they're the most prepared for what I'm walking into. If the meeting goes well, Dr Villette has offered his services as a liaison between our team and certain segments of the local population who might otherwise be hesitant to speak with us. London's constables, as I understand it, were not always willing or equipped to handle certain cultural differences. And let's be honest, Emily, we need the help."  
  
Prentiss nodded, eyeing Reid oddly. "You, of all of us, come in with an offer to introduce us to a self-proclaimed expert you met in a coffee shop. It's not like you, Reid."  
  
"It's infrequent that I think random people on the street have something worth stopping to hear, but at best, we've got a survivor who wants to help us communicate with other survivors, and at worst, we have someone delusional. Somewhere between best and worst, he may be the source of Jack." Reid shrugged. "We really don't have much to lose, in going to lunch with him, in a public place."

* * *

The Metro didn't quite go all the way to Moloch Street, yet, but it went far enough west that the station was only a few blocks away, and the transition between DC and London was jarring. The clean-cut light grey gave way to a murky brown that crept out of the last of London and stuck to the walls. The closer they got, the more it smelled of sulphur -- not strongly, but definitely less ignorably, more constant. The overpowering smell of smoke, black belching clouds of it from the Great Hellbound Railway's overland route through the hinterlands of what had once been London, definitely overrode the more subtle stench.  
  
"I thought Moloch Street was on the Underground," Rossi remarked, as they came around the corner, staring down a street that terminated at a massive, ornate building that looked like a third of it had been severed and crushed under the wall of another, more modern building.  
  
"It is," Reid assured him. "It's the first stop on the Moloch Street Line, which goes to Hell, and that's owned by the devils. The station on the other side of the road is for London's Great Hellbound Railway, which goes in the same direction, via an overland route. The Great Hellbound stops in, ah, I guess they're colonies to the west. I'm not sure if the Moloch Street Line stops anywhere that isn't part of Hell, for whatever that means. I wouldn't travel alone on either, yet. None of these people are used to us."  
  
Lewis seemed absorbed by the flow of people around them, all in odd variations of fashions the surface had last seen a hundred years ago or more. Groups of well-dressed, yellow-eyed people observed her in return, and many of them smiled in a way she wasn't sure was entirely friendly. Octopus masks seemed to be in fashion, here, as she'd seen no less than a dozen otherwise fashionably-dressed individuals wearing what seemed to be squid on their heads. "I've seen pictures of London from before the Fall, of the people who lived there, and I'd love to know what brought about these particular style choices. Do you think the fashions have taken on some native influences, or is this all the evolution of the London aesthetic? I'm not even sure what the native influences are, outside of the Bazaar."  
  
"I've heard the Bazaar isn't native, but that the Masters brought it here. I've also heard the Masters aren't native, but there's a lot to unpack, there. I gather they're from across the, er, 'Zee' somewhere." Reid spotted the familiar drape of coat and too-thin fingers holding a slim cigarette, up the road a bit, and he called out, raising a hand in greeting. "Dr Villette!"  
  
"God made two of him," Rossi observed, at first glance, "and the other one weighs even less."  
  
"They don't look that much alike, Dave." Lewis offered a wry smile. "Your expectations are showing."  
  
Reid didn't offer his hand, and the taller man looked relieved at the oversight, flicking the remains of his heavily spiced cigarette into the gutter. "Dr Villette, let me introduce you to my colleagues, Dr Tara Lewis and Supervisory Special Agent David Rossi. Agents, Dr Charles Villette..." He raised an eyebrow and cleared his throat. "Mathematician."  
  
" _Alienist_ and mathematician," Chaz corrected with a small sound of amusement. " _Agent_ Rossi, is it? Does the 'Supervisory' mean you're the boss?"  
  
Rossi gave a short laugh, gesturing at Reid. "Nobody's the boss of him."  
  
Lewis rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Don't let Prentiss hear you say that." She paused. "But, no, Dr Villette, our team lead didn't come out with us, today."  
  
"Dr Lewis and I prefer 'Doctor', of our available titles," Reid began. "Agent Rossi--"  
  
"Lacks the PhD." Rossi shrugged. "Pleased to meet you, Dr Villette. This is a bit of an out of the way place you've chosen to meet, but if you're from London, I can see the appeal."  
  
"It's almost all that's left," Chaz confirmed with a one-shouldered shrug, reaching for the door, with the other hand. His coat fluttered improbably at the motion. "Come in. The food is good, the portions are large, and the proprietors are ... if not friendly, at least unoffended by my companion."  
  
As they passed through the restaurant, Reid noticed a roughly-hewn statue of a man seated at one of the back tables, near where they were obviously going. To his surprise, Chaz stopped at that table and stepped over beside the large statue, gesturing at the three of them.  
  
"Duke, these are the people from Washington, Doctors Reid and Lewis and Agent Rossi. They'd like our help with the Jacks."  
  
Rossi shot Reid an exasperated look and Reid's shoulders pulled up, defensively, as he prepared himself to explain why he thought coming out here was a good idea. Maybe the steak would be good. Probably not good enough to cover for this one, though.  
  
And then the statue moved, slowly, lifting a three-fingered hand that plainly should've had five fingers in greeting, stone eyes watching them with no glimmers to show interest or lack thereof. "You come here from the Surface, and you think you can stop the Jacks." The gravelly voice, perhaps more genuinely gravelly than most, laughed. "You looked at my hand and you didn't even flinch. You have no idea what you're getting into. I hate to break it to you, but the Jacks are going to eat you alive and then eat you again, dead. Pull up another chair. I'm not eating, but I don't want to loom. It's bad for business."  
  
Reid blinked a few times and tried to find something appropriate to say, but all he could think was that it must be some sort of automaton, and that wasn't the kind of accusation one opened with, in a situation like this. "It's, ah... a pleasure to meet you. I'm afraid I was expecting someone a little more..."  
  
"Human?" The statue eyed him with an unreadable expression. "I get that a lot. People from Polythreme aren't always people. You'll get used to it. Just be glad you got me and not a clothes colony, or one of those screaming coins."  
  
Chaz pulled over two more chairs, setting one at each end of the table, leaving Duke to sit alone on one long side. He remained standing until everyone else had chosen a seat, and finally sat down beside Reid. "Duke's a Clay Man. Technically, he's an Unfinished Clay Man. You'll hear a lot of negative things about the Unfinished Men, and a majority of it is true. Clay Men rarely have the capacity to commit intentional crimes, but the Unfinished Men are... unfinished. They lack the innate restraint of their brethren, and gain a somewhat more human manner." He smiled slyly across the table. "And then there's Duke."  
  
"Up yours, kid." Duke tapped on the table with one heavy finger. "What you need to know about the Jacks is that they're probably not who you think they are."  
  
"There doesn't really seem to be a consistent profile," Rossi ventured, subtly looking for the wires or the tubes that had to be keeping the thing going. "The Jacks are from all economic levels, races seem to balance with the percentages in the city. Anyone could become a Jack."  
  
"You're right so far." Duke pointed at Rossi, then folded his hands and looked over Rossi's shoulder as an elderly woman approached the table. "How's it going, Marita?"  
  
"Look at you with all these friends!" The woman looked around the table, marvelling at the assortment of people. "And these clothes! They're not those revolutionaries from up the river, are they, Doctor?"  
  
Chaz shook his head, looking faintly amused. "They're, ah... detectives from the Murder Squad?"  
  
Rossi nodded amicably. "Close enough. We're from Washington."  
  
Marita lifted a hand to cover her gasp. "You're working again, Doctor! Good for you! Now, what can I get for the rest of you? I know what _he_ eats." She pointed a pencil at Chaz.  
  
"Well, if he knows what's good, maybe I should just have what he's having." Lewis pointed at Chaz.  
  
Chaz opened his mouth, closed his mouth, and cocked his head contemplatively. "A round for the table, if no one objects?"  
  
Rossi shrugged. "I'll take his word for it. You can tell a lot about a man by what he's willing to put in his mouth."  
  
Reid cleared his throat and raised his eyebrows at Rossi, before turning his attention to Marita with a polite smile. "I'll have what they're having."  
  
"Each or all?" Marita asked Chaz, with a mildly concerned look.  
  
"All. There's only one of me."  
  
A gravelly laugh spilled out of Duke, as Marita walked away. "That's a technicality and you know it. And there's at least three of you."  
  
"Not at the same time!" Chaz sat up straighter, coat rustling behind him. "Anyway, you were talking about the Jacks."  
  
"Sort of talking about the Jacks." The agents were to all sides of Duke, and he studied each of them in turn. "You haven't been here long enough to understand what I'm going to tell you. Like those kids who used to come down in the spring and do so much honey, half of them never went home because they were dead or honey-mazed. Dead's not that serious. I'm sure you've noticed. But, you can't go back up, if you're dead. The Sun will make sure you stay dead, up there."  
  
He thumped a finger on the table a couple of times, eyeing Chaz, expressionless. "You sure we're not going to send them screaming to the Royal Beth? You sure they're not going to try to send us to the Royal Beth?"  
  
"Oh, please, if you think I can't get us out of the Royal Bethlehem, _by now_..." Chaz rolled his eyes. "But, they're serious, at least. They're sure it's drugs and hypnotism, which, credit where it's due, isn't a bad guess, if you're not from around here. Think of how long it took London to get a grip on Jack, and even then, they couldn't _stop_ the Jacks."  
  
A rumbling sound, like stones rolling down a cliff, and then. "It's the knives. You have to find the knives and destroy the knives, without _touching_ them too much."  
  
"The knives are contaminated?" Rossi asked, a little surprised. "With what?"  
  
"Not so much contaminated as..." Duke leaned forward and the table creaked under the weight of his elbows. "There's a story that goes around about a guy who buys a suit. It's true enough in the broad strokes. Guy goes into a church shop, because he's poor and he's trying to get a nice suit for a wedding. And he finds this one that looks perfect -- it's clean, it's well-made, it's his size. It's exactly the kind of thing you don't find in the church shops, because nobody's going to give up something that nice. So, he buys it. Pays every echo they're asking. And he puts it away in his closet to wait for the wedding."  
  
Lewis realised she couldn't watch Dr Villette, if she was trying to look focused on the Clay Man, because they were on opposite sides of the table, and the Clay Man had no facial expressions to follow. The thing had to be some kind of puppet. Real stone didn't move like that. It definitely didn't carry on conversations.  
  
"And the next morning, the guy wakes up, and he's wearing the suit. No idea how he put it on, but it's on him. And then he finds he can't quite take it off. He unbuttons a cuff, and by the time he goes to undo the other, the first one's rebuttoned itself. It's not until it demands to see the city that he realises he's bought a clothes colony, straight off the boat from Polythreme." Duke paused and gestured with one hand, his elbow grinding audibly against he table. Chaz shot him a pained look that he appeared to ignore. "That's the knives. Jack's knives are Polythremic, and we don't know how many there are, but we're pretty sure they're the... not a whole person equivalent of Unfinished Men. They're angry, amoral, at best, and exerting their influence on whoever picks them up."  
  
"It's an unusual conclusion," Rossi ventured. "What led you to it?"  
  
It wasn't until Duke stood up that it became apparent that he'd been sitting on a crate, rather than a chair. No lines connected him to anything in the room as he gestured at himself from several different angles and then sat back down. "Sometimes the obvious answer really is the right one."  
  
Chaz cleared his throat. "Like a devil's sense for souls, Polythremic peoples can recognise the Vitality in one another. He's seen the knives that were recovered."  
  
"Now, here's the problem with this. Nobody's been making knives in Polythreme for a century or more, because _London_ knew. The Constables put a stop to it back in the nineties." Duke shrugged with as much expression as he'd shown so far. "But, nobody knows how many of the Jack knives were manufactured. And I think when your city fell, it crushed the vault, which may mean all the ones we had that hadn't been... dealt with are now back in circulation, as well. The worse problem is that the knives aren't all the same type. They just came from the same workshop, and every blade made in that workshop was affected, but the place is long gone, now. Burned to the ground, and the beams screamed all the way down. So, your problem, in a nutshell, is that any historical knife in the city might be a Jack blade. And the killers, themselves? The people wielding the blades? Most of them aren't bad people. Most of them died as Jack. But, the few that came back, after they lost the knife? None of them remember anything. They're victims as much as the victims are. You're up to your ass in sharks, here, and there's already blood in the water. Once the Jacks figure out what's going on, they're going to come after you, and I promise there's more of them than there are of you."  
  
"So, what?" Reid demanded. "We do _nothing_? Because I can promise you that is--"  
  
"Bleeding stupid. No, we've been after the Jacks for a long time." Duke shook his head. "But, you deserve to know what you're up against, here. This isn't just one person, find the killer, and it's all over. This case bites back, and I'm not sure you're equipped to be sticking your whole leg into it, yet. Especially right now, if the vault knives are back in circulation. Your city's barely holding its own walls up, and you don't know your asses from your elbows, and the first thing you get wrapped up in is the Jacks." He held up his partially-fingered hand. "I would never suggest that you do nothing. Your people are getting killed. You _have_ to do something. Just ... take unusual precautions. Accept that getting involved in this is going to put you in serious danger, _all the time_. You're probably going to get killed. Fortunately, again, that's not usually serious. Just don't fall in the damn river, and you'll probably be all right, but it's going to hurt."  
  
"And if you've got questions, remember you can send for us at any time," Chaz pointed out.  
  
"You figured out where we're getting mail, with the university buried under Washington?" Duke asked pointedly.  
  
"We can take it at Ealing Gardens, for now. Violet's townhouse is... was..." Chaz's eyes closed and his hands clenched tightly on themselves, as he took a few long breaths, his coat fluttering oddly.  
  
"I know, kid. I know. We all loved her." The grinding gravel took on a somewhat softer tone, more like sliding river rocks. "There was nothing we could've done. We almost lost you, too."  
  
"And yet, somehow you didn't. And aren't we all better for it?" Chaz drawled, after a few more breaths, hands dropping into his lap as his eyes opened and his coat re-settled. He reached into a pocket and produced a small, silver box of cards and a pencil. "I suppose we're back then."  
  
He scrawled something on the back of one card and handed it to Reid. "If you need something, just send an urchin to that address, with your card. The Night Painter's entourage will be able to find one of us."  
  
Reid examined the card, eyebrows arcing upward. "WTF?"  
  
"The polite initials of the last thing most people say before they call for us." Though his face didn't smile, Duke's voice seemed to.  
  
"Only if they're zailors," Chaz protested, as if he'd had the argument a thousand times. "Most people go for 'bloody hell' first."  
  
"And we don't want to hear about it from the Brass Embassy, so it's got an F, instead." Duke paused. "For 'fill in the blank'."  
  
Rossi laughed, that time, looking down the table at Lewis as he cocked his head at Duke. "I'm starting to like him."  
  
Marita reappeared with three plates, each with a different dish, and unloaded them onto the middle of the table, with a basket of bread and three smaller plates. She winked at Chaz. "I'll be right back with yours, Doctor."  
  
"I thought we all ordered what he was having..." Lewis eyed a plate heaped with what looked like potatoes and mushrooms, with a different kind of mushroom on the side, and a hefty steak. The one just past it looked like it had ... maybe chicken tenders, yet another mushroom-looking dish, and, predictably, more steak, though that one looked like it might be salmon. The third plate was too far to get a good look at.  
  
"You did." Duke nodded slowly. "He eats like he's feeding a houseful of urchins in Parabola."  
  
"Obviously, it's not doing me any harm!" Chaz smiled a little too brightly, picking up the bottle of Greyfields as soon as it hit the table, and pouring for Reid, first. "You'll want that if you go for the rubbery lumps. They're, ah... fish. Not as good as the ones on Mutton Island, but they're definitely filling."  
  
"Rubbery... lumps?" Reid looked a little green.  
  
Duke shrugged, stone scraping against stone. "Don't look at me. I don't eat any of this stuff."


	4. Chapter 4

The rooms in Ealing Gardens were small and lemony-fresh in that Rubbery sort of way, but they had space for a desk and a reasonably-sized mirror, something he wasn't going to catch his shoulders on, if he had to dive through it suddenly. He sat, writing, the mirror undraped above the desk. Very few things in any world could sneak up on him, least of all through a mirror. And those that could wouldn't be the least bit interested in his most recent attempt to document Jack of Smiles in a coherent and readable fashion.  
  
Still, he blotted what he had and set it aside, when the mirror turned blue-black, and then blacker still than that. He had just begun to be concerned, when a too-thin, too-black cat leapt down onto his desk, its collar glittering in a brilliant almost-blue and an eye-catching green. It blinked its indigo eyes at him, and sat down, putting a paw on the tip of his nose.  
  
"What took you so long?" Chaz asked, opening a drawer and unfolding a packet of dried fish and mushrooms into the space next to the cat. "I was starting to worry, when the mirror got to peligin and you weren't already here."  
  
"I wanted to be sure you had time to close your trousers. There are things I don't need to see, Flukelet." The cat spoke in a surprisingly clear voice, giving off the air of a woman in full command of a salon.  
  
"I'm _working_. And I'm still not Rubbery, Hafs."  
  
"You hang around here long enough, and you will be. You know half of Helicon House wants a go at your bones, and the other half wants a go at your--"  
  
"It's not like I can stay in Veilgarden, any more!" Chaz snapped, and the cat turned away, busying herself with the crumbling food.  
  
"What's wrong with Balmoral?" she asked, licking mushroom dust off her whiskers.  
  
"It's too far out. We've got work, again." Tipping his head to the side, Chaz rolled his eyes and cleared his throat. "Besides, September isn't speaking to me this week, after that thing with the Face of March, the other month. It's just awkward staying far enough up that I bump into him everywhere. He'll get over it. He always does."  
  
"Well, better this than the Magistracy, I guess. If there's not a Judgement under all that water, I'll eat a fluke spine. Law does not _work like that_." The cat washed her face, daintily.  
  
"You could always come down with me and see for yourself," Chaz offered, reaching for the pages he'd been working on.  
  
"That sounds incredibly damp."  
  
"There are other cats down there, you know."  
  
She sat up straighter, stretching her neck. "You are still lying about the underwater fish-cats. You've been trying to get me into that Drownie-filled puddle since the railroad first started running there, and I refuse to believe there are _fish-cats_. That's ridiculous. Even _catfish_ aren't really cats."  
  
"Your loss. I think they'd like you." Chaz shrugged and fanned the pages in front of him. "Here, look this over and tell me what's missing? Washington's investigators are trying to catch Jack of Smiles. I've been trying to condense what we know into something they'll be willing and able to understand."  
  
The cat peered up at him, expectantly.  
  
" _Yes_ , I will run down to the shops and get you some sausages."  
  
"You need a kitchen, Chazzie. You can't keep on in a bedsit like this."  
  
He shrugged. "It's just for now. It's not like I _live here_. I'll get something in the city, once the streets stop writhing. Or at least stop doing it so quickly."

* * *

Reid came in early, the next morning, earlier than he should've been there, but the streets were still wrong. Every time he looked outside, something was subtly different than it had been -- street signs missing, straight streets wandering off in directions they shouldn't have gone, no parking signs that hadn't been there the day before... He'd started taking photographs, just to prove to himself he wasn't going mad. But, he wasn't. The city was changing, still. Subtle adjustments to fit into and around the handful of older places that had survived the Fall.  
  
He unlocked his desk drawer to add the morning's Polaroids to the pile, and looked up as an unexpected movement in the hall caught his eye. Someone else was there. Someone else had just walked out of the bathroom and was now opening the door. And then 'someone' shook back its hood, and gave an awkward smile over the tray of coffee cups in one hand.  
  
"Didn't mean to scare the life out of you. I didn't think you'd be here, yet. I just came to drop off the report and some coffee."  
  
Reid studied Dr Villette as he crossed the room, bone-thin and a little ragged, still wearing that implausible coat -- a clothes colony, maybe? -- and otherwise dressed in well-made, well-worn clothes that likely marked his station, at one time. "How did you get here? The desk didn't call up to say you were waiting..."  
  
"Oh, ah..." Chaz cleared his throat and set down the tray of coffee on the corner of Reid's desk. "I didn't come in the front."  
  
"You were waiting in the bathroom, until I got here."  
  
"I was not waiting. I just got here." Chaz ducked his head and rubbed the back of his neck. "You should really do something about those mirrors. Especially in a place like this -- it's good they're all in a room down the hall, but that door should at least be locked."  
  
"The mirrors?" Reid raised his eyebrows. "You're trying to distract me from the fact that there's no outer entrance through the bathroom, and that there's no way for you to have come from that door if you weren't in the bathroom."  
  
"I _was_ in the bathroom. For as long as it took me to open the door and leave it." Chaz shook his head and pulled the folder holding his report out of his bag, tucking it under the tray of coffee. "Look, it's not a pleasant experience, unless you've studied it, but I can take you back where I came from and have you back at your desk within the hour. And we will be passing through that bathroom to get there."  
  
Reid double-checked that his badge, his gun, and his wallet were all on his person, and then picked up a pen and scrawled a note that he stuck on the edge of his monitor -- 'I am apparently going to explore the realms behind the bathroom mirror. It's 4:37AM, and I should be back in an hour. If you find this note, check the bathroom down the hall and bring in Dr Villette for questioning.'  
  
Chaz caught his eye. "I approve of your caution. Don't get too complacent, as things start to make sense."  
  
"I don't think I've been complacent a day in my life," Reid muttered, gesturing back toward the door. "After you."  
  
The bathroom was the same as he remembered it being, aside from a partially-wiped dusty smear on the side of one sink. The lights were much too bright, the white walls reflected the light in, and generally, it was like voluntarily walking into the precursor for a migraine.  
  
"Eyes on me," Chaz said, pulling a pair of mirrored glasses out of his pocket and handing them to Reid. "I don't need these, but they'll make it easier for you. First, watch me, so you know I haven't lost my mind."  
  
Reid watched in undisguised disbelief as Chaz stepped up onto the counter between the sinks and crouched, staring into the mirror. Some sort of self-hypnotism, he thought, before the glass turned a vibrant orange, translucent somehow, _deep_. It was like staring into the sun, he thought, but a lot less painful. And he was still trying to wrap his mind around this when Dr Villette leaned forward and slowly pulled himself into the orange-golden sunlight.  
  
This was not happening, Reid was certain.  
  
He stepped to the side, and it was still happening. He stepped up to the counter and peered at the edges of the mirror, and it was still happening. He put down the glasses and tapped on the glass, which felt strange but still barely solid, and it was still happening. Dr Villette vanished entirely, taking the orange glow with him, and it was definitely, inescapably, happening.  
  
The mirror was the same as all the others -- a plate of shatter-resistant plastic, backed with aluminium, affixed flat to the wall with metal rails he'd never given much consideration to. Perhaps there was something-- No. That wasn't really possible. This wasn't a stage performance. He'd had his hand on the glass as a man passed through it. Touching the mirror again, now, it felt surprisingly like a mirror, and he rested one hand on that mirror and one on the one beside it. They were both the same texture, now. Neither one could be pulled away from the wall, slid up, slid out, twisted, or reached behind.  
  
The glass lit, dimly, and in it, he could see an amused-looking coyote staring back at him. He watched it back away and charge the glass, and as he recoiled from the impending impact, Dr Villette slid back into the room, both hands holding the top of the mirror until he'd gotten his legs through and back under him.  
  
"As I said, you want to do something about protecting those mirrors. I'm not the only one who can do that, and there are things you want paying unexpected visits a whole lot less than me." Chaz raised his eyebrows and reached into his bag, again, taking out a small roll of what looked like individually-wrapped breath mints or cough drops. He loosened one with his thumb and held the roll out to Reid. "If you want to come with me, put the glasses on and put one of these in your mouth. Just one. You're with me, so you can probably cross without one, but it hurts less if you take one."  
  
"What... are they?" Reid made no move to touch the roll.  
  
"They're condensed Prisoner's Honey. Silverer's Specials. It's a pre-measured dose that makes it easier for a Silverer to cross into Parabola. The glasses also help, but the honey was designed to make crossing possible for people who can't do it naturally, so it's really the right tool for the job. I'm lucky. I've got a predisposition to this kind of thing, an affinity for mirrors, I guess. I've never needed the glasses or the honey, but they're a symbol of the profession. They're also good for when I have to move someone else in a hurry."  
  
Reid eyed the roll, picked up the glasses from where he'd set them down to examine the mirrors, and made a decision, putting the glasses on. "If you think it's possible without the honey, I'll do it without the honey."  
  
Chaz nodded, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "A man dedicated to doing things the hard way. I can respect that."  
  
"A man averse to potential psychotropic side effects, while doing the impossible with someone he doesn't know nearly well enough for this." Reid's face remained a disconcerting sort of blank as he put the glasses on. Nothing changed except the colour of the light.  
  
"Are you sure you want to do this?" Chaz asked, pulling himself back up onto the counter.  
  
"No, but I'm sure that I'm going to. I'm not convinced there's anything to be gained from fear, in this circumstance." Reid watched as Chaz stared into the mirror again. "What do I need to do?"  
  
"I'm going through feet-first this time, just so I can get out of your way. Come up here, take my hand, and don't let go until both your feet are on solid ground again." Chaz shifted his weight and slipped a leg through the glass, grabbing the slim edge of the mirror with one hand for balance. "You're not going to enjoy the experience, but coming back is easier."  
  
Reid was sure he was going to hit the glass right up until he didn't. The hand holding Dr Villette's passed easily into the sun-gold glow, but everything was sun-gold with these glasses on, including the mists he leaned into, following his own hand, which disappeared through another, taller frame in front of him. But, those mists were memories, each wisp a flare of some horror he'd never quite forgotten, and he could feel the ache in his hands and the pain in his head, as he was dragged through that second frame. He stepped out into what looked like a foyer, a small room with a large door at one end, coat hooks, a small table, three mirrors, and two more doors. The walls were rough-hewn wood that met peeled logs at the corners, and the whole of it smelled of cedar.  
  
"I've been here before," he said, letting go of the hand he held and taking off the glasses, rubbing his forehead as if it might make the headache pass more quickly.  
  
"You have. Try looking up; it's probably even more familiar," Chaz joked, hanging his bag on a hook by the door. The coat stayed on.  
  
Reid looked up and pointed at a round-framed mirror that hung just over the table, as he recognised the pattern of the ceiling from his dreams. "There. That's the mirror you were using. The bathroom mirror."  
  
"Well, it's not always Lord Langly's bathroom, but it usually is somewhere in the Hall. Something about the way the house works. It was supposed to go to the _ballroom_ , but I can't remember the last time it did." Chaz shrugged. "And mirrors aren't always doors to the same place, every time, anyway. From Parabola, you can reach out and touch almost any mirror in the Neath. Or the High Wilderness, as we found out, but no one was really trying to go there, until we realised there was a there. But, that Langley Hall one is a more or less fixed gate, because that's what it's supposed to be, which is a lot more powerful, here, than you'd think."  
  
Reid stopped looking at the ceiling, the throbbing behind his eyes still enough to make him squint. "I notice you're not a coyote."  
  
"Yes. Mostly, because I'm not a coyote. Not really. It's a bit of a joke and now I can't quite shake it, so I usually don't try. But, I have a guest, and making tea requires that I have thumbs." Chaz gestured to one of the doors, leading the way into a large kitchen with a stone floor and an attention-grabbing fireplace with an old bronze folding grate that occupied most of one wall. The fire seemed like it might never go out, given the temperature of the room, and it smelled of cedar and root beer.  
  
"Did you mean to leave your coat on?" Reid asked, eyeing the fire and feeling the warmth radiating from both it and the stone beneath his feet.  
  
"It goes everywhere with me." Chaz pushed up his sleeve just far enough to show a thin wrist with an incomprehensible tattoo and something subtly wrong that seemed to bend the light around it. And then the sleeve fell back into place. "I can't keep warm."  
  
"What happened to your wrist?" Reid asked, before realising that probably wasn't the right question. But, how did one ask why someone's arm seemed to distort reality, or whatever passed for it, in this place. He'd begun to wonder if he wasn't hallucinating, despite not having taken the drug. Maybe some sort of contact absorption. But, he hadn't taken anything or even touched anything when Dr Villette had first stepped through the mirror. Four hooves and stripes, and it was probably a zebra. This was actually happening on some level, and he really wasn't sure how he felt about that.  
  
"That? Oh, that's just something I got when I was younger. It says 'a mistake forged into a triumph'. Kind of the story of my life." It was the answer to one interpretation of that question, but not the one being asked, and Chaz felt no remorse as he busied himself with the tea. "I've got an incredible blend out of Port Carnelian, if you're into spiced tea, or if you want something a little more English, I've got a tin of Murgatroyd's Classic Black."  
  
"I'm afraid I've had all the adventure I can take for the moment. Let's go with the spiced." Reid offered a wry smile as he edged closer to the simple table in the centre of the room, draped in a worn-looking cloth that might once have been a curtain.  
  
"It's really the sensible choice, but I keep the Murgatroyd's for the sort of people I'd never invite back here. I like to think it keeps them at a distance. Nothing brings guests faster than being unprepared for them."  
  
"And yet, here I am," Reid quipped, squinting at the carvings in the blocks of one wall. They looked like they should say something, but the language wasn't one he knew.  
  
"Yes, but I wasn't ready for you the _first_ time." Chaz set a perfectly polished silver teapot on a waiting trivet on the table. "This time, I've inflicted you on _myself_."


	5. Chapter 5

" _Inflicted?_ " Reid met the man's mismatched, but equally-reflective eyes, certain he should be offended.  
  
"Come look at yourself from where I'm standing. I grew up in the Fifth City. I've been living with the Bazaar and the joys and annoyances of the Neath since before the birth of Albion. Most of what I know about the Surface, I've picked up in passing from tourists, or from the reactions to the Bazaar printed in your newspapers in the last few months. I know what's different, because your people are obstinately denying it's happening, in print. I've read most of the objections before you ever bring them up. But, down here, these things aren't just real, they're _normal_. Yes, some things that are happening to your city are rare, because I think they only happen once to each city, but the vast majority of things people are losing their minds over are just an average Wednesday." As he talked, Chaz brought down a sugarbowl and cream pitcher that were the same beautiful silver, but didn't quite match the teapot. "I don't know about where you're from, but some people are a lot less entertained by having their entire history, substance, and world prised and prodded at as if it were some unbelievable fiction, and not in fact the place in which all involved parties are currently standing."  
  
"I am extremely curious about this new world, and I am grateful that you've taken the time to offer your assistance, for whatever reason inspired that. I apologise if I seem a bit disbelieving, but the only things in my history that might have prepared me for what I'm encountering now involved delusions and hallucinatory states brought on by a variety of external methods. The best explanation I have for what's happening is that I've been drugged, again, and that's not a comforting position to start from." Reid paused, studying the doctor's sharp-boned face. "And the coyote really wasn't helping with that."  
  
"Sorry. Like I said, it's usually more effort than it's worth to not be that, here, even if it isn't what I am." Chaz poured the tea and then sat. "Enough about me. In the purported words of the great Dr Schlomo," here his accent changed to something thick, blatantly fake, and likely only distantly related to any languages of the Neath, "tell me about chour muzzah."  
  
Reid chuffed with amusement as he sat and took his tea. "Pass, thanks. She's still on the surface. But, I'll turn the same on you."  
  
Chaz shifted uncomfortably. "I'm an orphan. I used to run with the Knotted Sock. Weren't we not talking about me? What about your city? What's that like? Or... what _was_ that like?"  
  
"Full of tourists, and you could never get a cab, when you needed one."  
  
"Sounds a lot like London, actually. I wonder if that's what attracts the Masters." Chaz sipped his tea. "They're in love with love, actually. Every city that's fallen has been sold for a... I hate to say 'happy' ending to a love story. The Empress bought her consort a little more time. Well, a lot more time, though I hear he didn't take the trip to Albion well."  
  
"The bookstores don't have romance sections, any more," Reid noted, turning the cup on the table, but not drinking from it. "Nor are there romance novels by the registers in the corner grocery. It used to be that they were the most-represented genre -- poorly-edited, formulaic stories about average women and their stalkers-turned-lovers. The terrible police novels have filled in the space, with their alcoholic protagonists bearing assault rifles and bulletproof vests, whose cases drag on forever, because they keep shooting people instead of questioning them."   
  
Chaz covered his mouth, trying not to dribble tea on the table by laughing. His coat rustled slightly out of time with the shaking of his shoulders. "And to think, I can now witness the culture that produced such horrors. Speaking of horror, it's how London got around the romance prohibitions, for a while. You'd pick up a book, expecting a tale of monsters from over the Zee, and instead you'd find the story was about a monster-hunter's daughter hunting her one true love in ways that didn't involve any stabbing or shooting, except in the most metaphorical sense. Eventually, the Bazaar got wise to that."  
  
Reid glanced at his watch. "I did say I'd be back in less than an hour, and I'm ... I think my watch liked the transition even less than I did."  
  
"Don't worry about the time. You'll be back less than an hour after you left. There's a lengthy semi-scientific reason, but the short version is Parabola is like that. The _Neath_ is like that, depending on who, where, and when you are, but Parabola is especially like that. I can lend you a book that covers it, though. Even to me, it sounds like the worst in conspiracy journalism, but it's true enough that the finer details are only going to make a difference to the kind of lunatic academic I didn't have the stomach to become. I did try, though. Gave some lectures in Supernumary Studies, and then wandered off into representations of count, value, and ordinality in the Correspondence. I'm lucky I didn't end up in the Tomb Colonies. I'm too pretty for Venderbight, and I'm not that good looking."  
  
"Rossi thinks you look like me." Reid neglected to mention if that was a point for good looking or not.  
  
"Rossi's apparently seeing what he expects. Don't let him stand too close to mirrors, until he gets over that. Definitely keep him away from the devils -- don't get me wrong, the devils are great, but you should go into a meeting seeing clearly. They are incredibly skilled at sleights of both hand and mind, and they're a little too close to the... well... Let's just say certain Parabolan arts come easier to them than to most people, and leave it at that. Again, I'm pretty sure I've got a book, if you want to borrow it." Chaz cleared his throat. "Weren't we talking about _you_?"  
  
"I'm not that interesting," Reid insisted, finally taking a sip of the tea. It was definitely some kind of spiced chai, but he was completely unfamiliar with any of the flavours in it. "I grew up in Las Vegas, went away to college, got a few degrees, and took a job with the FBI."  
  
"You are that interesting, because I don't know where Las Vegas is, and I'm still not sure what 'FBI' stands for, if it's not something rude."  
  
"Las Vegas is a city in the desert. A few miles outside of it looks a lot like where you found me, the first time. The city is mostly known as the casino capital of the country. All anyone sees is the bright lights and the gambling, but there's a real city there. All the support people who work for the casinos, all the people who have nothing to do with the casinos, but if it's off the strip, it might as well be invisible. It's a strange place, where nothing's quite what it seems, if you're from somewhere else, but if you live there, everything's exactly what it looks like."  
  
Chaz looked contemplative. "Sounds a bit like Worlebury-juxta-Mare, honestly."  
  
Reid shook his head. "I can't say I've heard of it."  
  
"You're better for it. I keep meaning to ... do something about it, but there's something so wrong with the place I can't quite get a grip."  
  
"You can't. And you probably shouldn't. If it's like Las Vegas, the strip, whatever its incarnation is there, is probably keeping the rest of the city alive to some extent. You'd break the economy, if you actually succeeded in 'doing something' about the place." Reid shook his head again, this time a bit more tiredly. "What exactly is it that you're against? Gambling? Drugs? Prostitution? Some local vice I've never heard of?"  
  
Chaz caught his eye with a somewhat unsettling gaze. "Slavery, actually."  
  
"I rescind the preceding objection in its entirety. Though you are probably still going to destroy the local economy, and the impact on the people you're trying to help needs to enter into any attempt to do so. I don't know why it didn't cross my mind, and it should have. I do know better."  
  
"And you see at least one of my problems. Technically, it may be indenture, but the conditions are fundamentally horrible, functionally incorrect, and virtually inescapable, so I'm not sure there's a practical difference. The same can be said of a lot of resorts, I suppose, but there's something more wrong than usual. I should be able to see it, and I can't... aside from the obvious problem of the acidic atmosphere and the donkeys that-- Let me not ruin a good tea. " Chaz shook his head. "You still haven't explained 'FBI'."  
  
"Federal Bureau of Investigation. Obviously enough, we investigate crimes, but national and regional crimes, rather than those confined to a smaller jurisdiction. When it's something that can't be handled by the local police, because it's too geographically large or they lack the resources, that's when they ask for our help. I belong to a team that's most often specifically assigned to stop serial murderers, like Jack of Smiles." Reid cleared his throat and sipped his tea. 'Tea', really; something about it tasted like it might be some herbal blend without a single tea leaf in it, but the odd citrusy notes were pleasant. It was as if someone had heard of orange spice tea and had tried to recreate it with no knowledge of oranges or the sort of spices that went in it. "Of course, now that there's no longer a nation to speak of, I'm not sure the Bureau will remain intact. It's a bit of an awkward position to be in, but I know my team will be working together at least to the end of the Jack of Smiles case."  
  
"Then you've got nothing to worry about. I'm not convinced we can stop Jack, but we can definitely slow down the frequency of the attacks. We almost had it under control in London, for a lot of years, and then another cache turned up." Chaz tapped a finger on the air, pointing across the table. "Do you know if maps of your city still exist? The Bazaar's not going to let that stand, for long, so if you can get one, hide it well. I'd also like to see it -- the street names may have changed, but a lot of them are probably roughly where they are on the old maps, still, and I might be able to help you figure out where the knives are coming from, because I know where a lot of them were stored pending destruction."  
  
"That's right, you said they were kept in a safe." Reid paused. "But, if the safe was crushed by the falling city, wouldn't that mean all those knives are underground?"  
  
"Not necessarily. Between the Masters, the Bazaar, the Treacheries, and the fact the knives are Polythremic, they may have come up in a sewer or the tunnels of your Metro. Or they may have been forced down into one of the underground colonies -- a multitude of Clay Men, like Duke, lived under London. We're pretty sure they're still there, but the entrance to the Clay Quarter was always concealed, and I suspect they've felt no urge to resume relations with humanity just yet. Like the Rubberies, they're probably protecting themselves."  
  
"I hate to say it, but they're probably right."  
  
"All of the cities have been human cities. They know."  
  
"...Did you say the 'Treacheries'?" Reid blinked as he went back over the words in his head. "I know the Masters, the Bazaar, and at least something about Polythreme, but I'm not sure I've come across any Treacheries with a presumably capital 'T'."  
  
"They're the differences in time and space between the Neath and the Surface. Everyone's affected by them, to some degree, just in the course of living here. Obviously, calling them 'Treacheries' comes from a Surface perspective. It's just the... if not laws of nature, definitely the strong suggestions of nature, down here." Chaz shrugged and got up, leaning out into another room and coming back with a red-bound book. He stopped for a tin of biscuits before he sat back down. "Here, this is the book I was talking about, when you mentioned your watch being off, Cosgrove's _Seven Treacheries_. Please don't let anyone know you have it. Mr Pages was not a fan, and it's really hard to get a copy. Probably moreso, now. Cosgrove and Byers were working on the Dawn Machine, when the first human applications of the Treacheries became apparent. They parted ways over a researcher who lost her taste for the project, and Cosgrove published in his own name. Shortly afterward, Cosgrove was found in a warehouse in London, irretrievably crushed under a toppled pallet of Ministry-approved literature, and Byers disappeared for years. Most of the copies of _Seven Treacheries_ disappeared, after that. This is one of the last."  
  
He didn't mention that he was sure there were other copies because he'd copied the book himself.  
  
Reid raised an eyebrow, sceptically, sliding the book across the table toward him. "How is it that we've just met and you're willing to lend me a rare banned book? You'll forgive me for saying that seems unlikely."  
  
"I know where another one exists, and I can copy it, if necessary," Chaz admitted, opening the tin of biscuits and taking one for himself. "I'm more concerned about you than I am about the book. It's one of those books that seems to surface just before unfortunate accidents that are reported to result in devastating deaths for the owner and the destruction of the book. But, I'm starting to like you, and you seem like an intelligent individual, so I'd like you to understand that if you're crazy, it's not because you're experiencing any of these things."  
  
Reid blinked, a laugh surprised from between his lips. "If I'm crazy? Have I given you the impression I might be?"  
  
"Dr Reid, you, like I, are an alienist, and as such, you know I can't possibly make that kind of determination based on so short an acquaintance." Chaz's eyes gleamed with amusement. "On the other hand, you're an alienist, so you must be mad." He laughed easily, eyes still shining unnaturally in the warm light of the room.  
  
There came a light tapping from the foyer, and then a woman's voice. "Flukelet? You here? Because I promise you someone else is..."  
  
"I'm not Rubbery, Hafs! And we're in the kitchen!" Chaz held up a hand, drawing Reid's eyes away from the door. "Unlike me, she's exactly what she looks like."  
  
Reid glanced over, confused and half expecting another coyote, when a massive, bone-thin panther stalked into the room, wearing a lavishly jewelled collar in unusual shades of semi-recognisable colours. He continued to observe, half hoping a woman would appear in its wake. But, no, just the enormous, hungry-looking cat.  
  
"Chazzie! Did you get me a present?" Hafidha crossed to where Reid sat, tail swishing, and rubbed the side of her head against his shoulder in a gesture anyone familiar with cats would recognise as friendly. "Look at him! He's so cute!"  
  
"Down, Hafs. He's not your species." Chaz rolled his eyes apologetically at Reid, who barely dared to breathe.  
  
"Says the guy who has never once let that get in his way," Hafidha teased, padding around the back of Reid's chair to stick her nose in the biscuit tin. "Besides, he's cute _like you_. And I love you, but ew, no."  
  
"Please excuse my sister," Chaz sighed at Reid, as crunching echoed up from the biscuit tin, accompanied by a spray of bits of shattered biscuit. "Hafidha, this is Dr Spencer Reid, from Washington. Spencer, this is my sister, Hafidha. We're... ah... I don't think we share any parents."  
  
Hafidha lifted her head from the biscuit tin, crumbs caught in her whiskers. "We might. You never know. What _is_ your--"  
  
Chaz stepped on her paw, eliciting a furious yowl. "We're orphans. It's _like that_."  
  
For a moment, Reid didn't think he looked like a coyote at all, but more like a stepped-on frog. "Ah, I ... see?"  
  
"Spencer, here," Chaz went on, "is trying to put an end to Jack of Smiles. I've had to explain the difficulties in doing that."  
  
Hafidha looked over from where she was scornfully eyeing Chaz and licking her stepped-on paw. "We've been trying forever. Every time you think you've got him, you get a break of a few years, and then somebody finds another one of those devil-rejected knives. Not even Hell wants the bloody things."  
  
"You work together?" Reid asked, extremely aware that he was now, technically, in an incredibly dangerous situation, moreso than he had been up to this point. In a place he wasn't certain how to leave, with someone he barely knew, and now, a very hungry, very large cat that had just been offended.  
  
"We work with a lot of people. Weird crime affects us all, and you can't solve the case if you can't even identify what's happened, which your average Londoner couldn't." Hafidha yawned widely, wafting breath that smelled of fish and ginger across the table. "There's... eight of us?"  
  
"We lost Violet and Reyes went North."  
  
"Yes, but that nice Carnelian boy joined us."  
  
"It's only eight if you count the Devilish Anatomist. I've heard she's working in Ealing Gardens, again."  
  
"Eight," Hafidha assured Reid. "Because we have the Devilish Anatomist, the Carnelian Ventriloquist, the Clay Journalist, the Inscrutable Khaganian, the Implacable Detective, and the Vulcanised Beefcake."  
  
"Brady's not Rubbery, either, Hafs," Chaz sighed.  
  
"The hell he isn't. Humans aren't shaped like that naturally. He may have been human, but he's some kind of shapeling, now. Amber-touched."  
  
"He can't even speak the language." Chaz sighed loudly. " _Excuse my sister._ "


	6. Chapter 6

By the time Alvez arrived, Reid was at his desk with what looked like a casefile propped up on his keyboard, while he held a book open on the corner of the desk with one hand and took notes with the other. Like any other day, really.  
  
"You're up early. Can't sleep?" Alvez asked, setting his coffee on his own desk as he passed it, trying to get a better look at what Reid was working on.  
  
"I don't sleep that much, in general. And while I was not sleeping, I was visiting Parabola, with the increasingly unusual Dr Villette." Reid folded the book closed and slipped it into his bag. "I think that was the first conversation I've ever had in which I had to explain Las Vegas, not because of some fundamental misunderstanding, but because the other person had never heard of it. That aside, I have the last century and change of case notes on Jack of Smiles. And we're almost right -- there is some sort of external control going on with the Jacks, but it's not drugs and hypnotism. It's some sort of ... I'm going to wait until Rossi or Lewis get here, or you're going to recommend me for a psych evaluation, and while I may be a little crazy, having recently fallen into a hole in the ground with my entire city, they will be able to assure you that the information in this file is not pure fiction. All three of us were at that lunch, yesterday, and all three of us met the same incredibly unlikely individual, who stands as at least an indicator, if not actually proof, that this theory may be accurate."  
  
"Reid, we live in a world where people don't stay dead any more. Whatever the hell else is out there, I doubt it's weirder than that."  
  
Reid groaned and leaned into his hand, elbow resting on the desk. "You have no idea," he said, holding up one page of notes from the red book. "You really have no idea."

* * *

"I'm sorry, we're looking for what?" Prentiss stared down the table at the three agents making notes on the whiteboard.  
  
"The knives," Lewis repeated. "According to the Clay Man, who really is made of clay, not that I asked, we're looking for the knives, and no one should handle those knives directly at all or remain in close proximity to them for long."  
  
JJ caught Reid's eye, looking completely confused. "Go back to the part about the Clay Man."  
  
"His name is Duke, and he comes from the island of Polythreme, where inanimate objects have personalities and desires of their own." Reid gestured over his shoulder to where 'Polytheme' was written on he board. "You know the golem legends? He's like a golem, but one with no master and no desire to take orders, because he's what they call 'Unfinished', which for a Clay Man appears to consist of being born with a combination of mental and physical disabilities, though what's considered a mental disability among Clay Men is ... curious. Certainly, many of them do turn to crime, like the apparently-infamous Clay Highwayman, but some of them simply have an unusual strength of personality and will. I don't think we're going to have a good grip on what constitutes the psychology of Clay Men in general, until we've met more of them, but for now, I have met one, and given that he is exactly what he claims to be, I'm inclined to lend some amount of credence to the knife theory."  
  
"The knives, supposedly, are all different types, but all made during a particular period of London's history," Lewis explained. "It's less the type of blade that matters and more that the blades were made by the same smith or in the same shop on Polythreme. These knives are imbued with the vitality that comes with being forged on Polythreme, but for whatever reason, they're also imbued with a desire to kill. The important thing is that no new knives are being made. No one has made knives on Polythreme in over a hundred years, in no small part _because_ of Jack of Smiles."  
  
Alvez glanced around the room, to see if anyone else was struggling with the idea. Then again, people also weren't staying dead, so maybe there was something to it. "So, this is what, some kind of cursed sword story?"  
  
"Actually, that's not a bad way of thinking about it!" Reid nodded. "In cursed sword stories, the blade often seems harmless, at first, slowly driving its wielder to do more and more terrible things. We think the Jack blades act more quickly, but that they most likely temporarily make the wielder believe things or even see things that are not real. Few identified Jacks have ever survived the experience, and those who do remember nothing of the experience, beyond picking up the blade. The survivors, naturally, are the ones who dropped the blade while running, rather than beginning a spree killing with onlookers or constables. Jacks frequently end up being killed in a somewhat more permanent fashion than we've become accustomed to seeing in the last few months. It is, I'm told, possible to ensure someone can't return to their body, but that doing so is considered extremely rude and a far greater crime than a simpler murder that the victim will walk away from in a few hours."  
  
Simmons raised his hand. "I just want to point out that a murder the victim walks away from is categorically not a murder. Assault, maybe? Attempted murder? But, the definition of murder assumes the victim is not returning from that death."  
  
"It's worth considering that we may need to make our own decisions about what constitutes murder, until the courts get back to us with a final decision." Rossi shook the marker he held. "For now, I'm content to judge a murder based on injuries that should have resulted in a permanent demise, that the victim either stayed dead from or got up and walked away after, with little or no medical attention. Because that second case is people who were dead, and then stopped being dead, given what they're seeing by the water."  
  
"Dr Villette explained that the laws of London also changed to accommodate the widely variant types of murder. Obviously, we have the kind in which someone is murdered and they remain deceased -- I'm told there are ways to ensure that outcome. Then there's what we're discussing, things that would have been murder in the first sense, if they hadn't happened here. And then there's consensual murder, which is not actually euthanasia, as one might expect, but the description of a game called 'Knife-and-Candle', in which the players assassinate one another for points. One of the early stages of an investigation in London was to check if the victim was a member of any of the Knife-and-Candle leagues, which were of questionable legality, but generally marked the case as not worth investigating -- the victim would most often be back up in a few hours, and back in the game in a matter of days. It's said that the game was Mr Iron's creation, so we may come to have these problems as well." Reid uncapped the marker he held and turned back to the board, writing as he talked. "I do believe a certain amount of attention needs to be given to the types of death most likely to be permanently fatal, both for the matter of law and so that none of us become unnecessarily reckless, as death becomes less meaningful than it once was. As with many vampire legends, removal of the heart or head is likely to result in permanent death of the body if it's not replaced quickly. Deaths by crushing, because of the damage to those parts, are also frequently genuinely fatal. Certain types of poison are strong enough to prevent the, and I quote, 'vitality of the Mountain of Light' from returning one to life. Incineration, obviously. And, oddly, death at sea, from any cause."  
  
"Death at sea?" JJ tipped her head, curious.  
  
"I asked. Dr Villette assured me that it was the case, but couldn't provide a definite reason, mentioning only that there were a number of possible reasons that he would be willing to discuss, once we were more accustomed to the Neath." Reid smiled tightly. "I have also been assured the Fathomking's court is not a fairy tale, and that we'll be meeting the Drownies soon enough, once the river begins to settle."  
  
" _Drownies?_ " Alvez blinked.  
  
"Certain kinds of drowning deaths apparently do return to life, as you've noticed, but a certain subset never again leave the water, and claim to be under the rule of the 'Fathomking', the ruler of some sort of underwater kingdom, which, if there are that many people who have drowned and are refusing to return to land, is probably a necessity." Reid's shoulders followed his eyebrows up. "But, to return to Jack of Smiles, Dr Villette has requested access to a map of DC, warning that the Masters will seek to have those destroyed, along with the original street signs, though he's never been quite certain why. Something about their concept of ownership and language, I expect, though I haven't had an opportunity to speak to any of them, directly. Dr Villette believes he can pinpoint the area in which the knives were once stored, pending destruction, so we may be able to gather and destroy a large number of them, very quickly. Of course, some have already made it into circulation, so the murders will continue until we've found and destroyed all the blades. London was working on the problem for more than a century, so there are far fewer blades than there once were."  
  
"I'm a little concerned about us taking the word of one man with few verifiable credentials," Prentiss admitted, "but the investigation has been going nowhere, and it's not as if there's anywhere to verify the credentials of Londoners, any more. And we do need people with a certain amount of local expertise that we are suddenly lacking."  
  
"Dr Villette suggested we call upon a Special Chief Superintendent Falkner at the Magistracy of the Evenlode, which is apparently a stop on the, ah, 'Great Hellbound Railway'." Rossi held up a hand. "I know. But, we walked past the station, and that's what it's called. Not to be confused with the Moloch Street Express to Hell, which is further down the street."  
  
"Falkner is their... handler, I suppose. The group Dr Villette works with contracts with London's constabulary for unusual cases, things where a certain expertise in foreign culture or historical contract law or--"  
  
"You mean the things we keep you around for?" Alvez teased.  
  
Reid blinked and nodded. "Something like that, but I don't generally handle Rubbery-on-Rubbery crime or two-thousand-year-old contract disputes resulting in multiple modern homicides, and they do. They also handle people being murdered via dreams, murder via lorn fluke, murder and mass destruction via Correspondence, uncontracted possession by dream-snakes, and disputes about the rights of Unfinished Clay Men. We're looking at a group of people who are extremely accustomed to the sort of crime we have yet to even conceive of."  
  
"Are we sure these are all actually categories of crime?" Alvez asked, and Prentiss nodded. "Murdered via _dreams_? _Rubbery_ crimes? What is that, even, beating someone with a dildo? Mass destruction via correspondence? Does he mean mailbombs?"  
  
Reid shook his head. "The Correspondence is ... well, I suppose it is explosive. It's the language written on the spires of the Bazaar, which is one of the few substances that won't combust upon contact with the symbols, or so I'm told. I am going to test this, later, with appropriate precautions in place. 'Rubbery' refers to the Rubbery Men, with whom I believe Lewis was quite impressed, yesterday."  
  
"I honestly thought they were wearing masks. They look like they have squid on their heads, but Duke explained those are actually their faces, and that very few of them lived in London, proper, so we're likely to start seeing more of them as they become more comfortable coming into town." Lewis looked a bit embarrassed. "They're all very well dressed, extremely polite, but only gesturally. I'm told that however much English any of them understand, they're physically incapable of speaking it, and it's implied we can't speak their language, either, because we lack the, ah, mouth parts. Apparently a certain percentage of London took issue with them, and human on Rubbery crime was quite high, and certain constables wouldn't investigate it at all. I'm expecting we'll have the same problem."  
  
"We'll need to push for laws granting the same rights to non-human residents of the city," Rossi said, nodding, "but we all know what people are like, even _with_ laws. We're going to have a problem, and I think it's worth meeting with the Chief of Police and the Mayor to work out whose jurisdiction these things are going to be, and what we're going to do about them. I can almost guarantee an argument about whether the Clay Men, the Rubbery Men, and the so-called Devils count as foreign nationals."  
  
"Serial killers, guys." Prentiss held up both hands. "Until we hear otherwise, we deal with serial killers, under the laws as they've been until this point. Maybe a little domestic terrorism, some spree killers, depending on how things go in the next few months, but we're just going to pretend nothing is different, until we get some kind of official guidance on what we're doing, down here. For now, we focus on the Jacks."

* * *

If there was one thing Reid was sure of, it was that there wasn't supposed to be anyone in his apartment. But, as the clinking and clattering sounds from the bathroom continued, he remembered Dr Villette's warning about mirrors. He drew his gun and crept into the room, surprising a large rat with a terrible case of plumber's crack that seemed to be replacing one of the faucet handles on the sink.  
  
The rat squealed and leapt up, tossing a pipe wrench that clattered into the sink. "By the saints! I ain't done nothing, Gov! I'm just in to do the repairs! Your heat's about as reliable as a honey-drunk postman and the pipes scream every time you turn on the hot water! I swear, I'm just maintenance! I'm a working rat like any other! I got a wife! I got three kids!"  
  
Reid blinked, rubbed his face with one hand, and holstered his gun, not quite ready to face the latest intrusion of the Neath into his otherwise quiet life. "I'm... a constable." He decided those were words that would mean something to the rat. "I thought someone had broken in."  
  
"Oh, nah, not really breaking in. It's what we do. Well, most of us you want to know, anyway. Few bad rats in every litter, but we're the best maintenance you can get around here. All of London knew it, and you will too." The rat nodded, a great deal more confident without a gun in its face. It held out a small hand. "Call me Harvey. Your landlord's paying me and the boys to fix up, so don't worry about a thing. You'll barely know we're here. In and out."  
  
"I, ah..." Reid blinked again at the rat. As unfond as he was of shaking hands, this was one of the rare occasions he thought the gesture might benefit him. After all, he'd pulled a gun on the rat, and was about to ask a hundred impolite questions, none of them quite as impolite as showing up in someone's apartment, unannounced and uninvited. He offered a hand to the rat, which grabbed his finger and shook vigorously. "Pleased to meet you, Harvey. Do you, ah... do you mind if I ask you some questions, while you work?"  
  
"Depends on what yer askin' me about, now, doesn't it?" Harvey picked up his wrench and went back to work tightening the fixture.  
  
"Well, London, mostly. The Neath. I've only been down here a few weeks, and it's... confusing." Better to play the bewildered young constable than to admit he had contacts in Parabola. If he played stupid with enough people now, he'd get a wide variety of beliefs to compare.  
  
"Oh, sure. You poor surface bastards really got the shit end, didn't you? Dragged down here in the middle of the night, and now all the streets keep moving around, and no one can tell you quite where anything is." Harvey tapped on the sink basin and called out, "Give us the hot, Mortimer!"  
  
As the squeaking sound of a turning valve emanated from the cabinet that contained his gun safe, Reid tried to decide where to start. "Is it different, working here, versus working in London?"  
  
"Oh, sure. You lot got all these rules and regulations about how buildings are supposed to go together, only half the ones you dropped on us don't go to your own specs. Back in London, as long as it worked, it was probably fine. Especially after the Royals took the Palace and buggered off through the Gate. They claimed they took the whole city, stone for stone. More like they took all the shite a one might recognise and left the bits nobody cared about. Most of the urchin gangs got out, though. A lot of the rats went, too. Not my boys. We loved this city and we didn't much mind the Bazaar. The Empress could fuck right off, though, pardon my French. Never any good working for her lot. Your lot got an empress, too?"  
  
"No. We don't have an empire, so we don't have an empress. We have a president. Of course, considering there's just the city left, I'm not sure it matters what we call the ruler."  
  
"Ah, don't you worry Won't be like that, for long. Give it a few years, and your lot'll have colonies all over the Unterzee, just like London. Just wait 'til you see the Uttershroom." Harvey shook his head. "I was but a wee rat, when my da was an engineer on that research ship, and we sailed out to the Myceligaea sea, covered in blooms of the most beautiful fungus you ever saw. And then there was the Uttershroom and her blemmigans... wonderful, all of it. There's a blemmigan colony down in the marshes, if you didn't land on it. They're fun guys, those fungi. I always liked their poetry. It's weird, and I don't really get it, but I like it."  
  
"I find a lot of poetry is like that, at first. Without the context, whole sections remain translatable only in the most literal way, often completely missing the double meanings and metaphors. It's only with a good sense of the history of a time and place and its people that the poetry of those people becomes fully comprehensible. Depending on the style, though, the rhythm and the onomatopoeic sounds of the words may convey at least the general feeling." Reid sat down on the floor, back to the wall, which put him somewhat closer to eye-height with the rat.  
  
"You know a lot about poetry for a constable, don't you?" Harvey asked, cranking the still handle-less tap and tipping his head to listen to the pipes.  
  
"I studied it for some time, before I came to the law. Most of my books are... actually, if you know the poetry that fell with London, you probably know some of it, already."  
  
"Nah, much prefer that blemmigan stuff. You should give a listen, some time, if you can find a reading." Harvey tapped his foot, still waiting for the plumbing to do something.  
  
"Maybe I will. Can you tell me your favourites -- favourite poets, favourite poems?" He was sitting on the floor asking the talking rat working on his plumbing about the best mushroom poets, as if this were a perfectly normal turn of events, and not for the first time in the months since the fall, Reid wondered if he'd completely lost his mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this one's late. I just had the day that would not end. ( ~~to be followed, tomorrow, by part two: son of the day that would not end~~ )


	7. Chapter 7

The rats weren't out of his way until late, so he waited until the next night, but the warning about Correspondence being dangerous on the wrong materials still didn't seem right to Reid, especially since Dr Villette had a sigil on his wrist. No, that had to be a misunderstanding. Something about the traditional inks, maybe. Still, he wasn't foolish enough to test it anywhere but the bathroom. If anything happened, the porcelain wouldn't burn, and there was water right there. All the same, he felt a bit of a fool, kneeling on the bathroom floor, resting a sheet of paper on the edge of the bathtub. He'd decided that if anything went wrong, a pencil was the best bet, despite the flammability of wood, because at least it wouldn't melt in his hand.  
  
Closing his eyes, he thought back to the odd symbol on Dr Villette's arm. It wasn't that complex a symbol, now that he considered it, pencil on the page. An arrow, a spike, a slash, a curve, the bracket, the bracket, the swoop, the slash, the jag-- as he finished the last line, smoke rose from the point of the pencil, and the paper burst into such hot, swift flame that it was just gone, scorching the side of his hand as he dropped the pencil into the bath. The sigil had burned itself onto the edge of the bath, lines of black char, which now also started to smoke, as if it, too, might burn.  
  
In a panic, he grabbed the toilet brush and scrubbed at it until the lines blurred and the smoking subsided.  
  
Correspondence, _indeed_.  
  
He felt the liquid run down his fingers onto the handle of the toilet brush before he realised how badly he'd burned his hand, the leaking blister wrapping around the outside of his hand and red scorch marks on the underside of a few fingers. Great. Just... great. This was going to make everything even more difficult for a few days, he thought, digging a bottle of burn gel he hadn't thought about since his last failed attempt at a beach holiday out of the back of the cabinet behind the mirror... the mirror he still needed to cover.  
  
One step at a time.  
  
He drained the blister and washed his hands, before applying the burn gel and immediately realising he was out of bandages, because of the wounds he'd taken in the Fall. Fine. The hard way, then. He wrapped his hand in toilet paper and masking tape, knowing that every time he looked at it, it would be a reminder to go to the store. Wherever the store had gone.  
  
Even if everything he was experiencing was real, he thought he might be losing his mind, _anyway_. In that moment, he definitely understood Dr Villette's admonishments about madness -- these things were true, they were actually happening, and that was the point from which the madness stemmed. The bare reality of the Neath was going to drive him round the bend. Well, at least he could see it coming, he supposed, as he stooped to clean the wreckage of his Correspondence experiment, single handed. _Wrong_ -handed.  
  
When he stood up to rinse the sponge, he noticed his mirror glowing an unusual green, which darkened rapidly as he watched it for a few seconds, as he fumbled with a towel, trying to shake it out so he could drape it over the mirror. Sort of. The mirror sat almost flush to the wall, and the towel was heavy. And, as noted, worse things than Dr Villette came through mirrors. This wasn't going to work, he decided, when the mirror looked like the deepest sea, and still nothing had appeared, and flung open the cupboard to get his gun from the safe. Not his first choice, but given the Neath, possibly the only sane one left.  
  
It was probably just Harvey, he told himself, though the rat hadn't left through the mirror. It was probably just Harvey and he was going to have to apologise for pulling a gun on Harvey, again.  
  
And as he wrapped the wrong hand around the grip of the gun, he felt something pat his head. He was too late. And he had no idea what was up there.  
  
It patted him on the head, again, feeling suspiciously like a cat, and he rocked backward, sure he could keep his head down if he didn't try to stand, and he hit the wall, gun pointed at the ceiling, eyes locked on the... scrawny cat perched on the rim of his sink, licking its paw and watching him in amusement.  
  
"Just so you know," Hafidha told him, "you're really bad at this."  
  
"Thank you. I'd noticed." Reid huffed and rested the gun in his lap, brushing his hair back with his bandaged hand. "Do you make a habit of just walking into people's bathrooms?"  
  
"I didn't just walk in! I gave you plenty of notice! You could've had plenty of time to get out of the bath and put on a housecoat, not that you were in the bath. You're much too dry." Hafidha's eyes were much the same colour as the leather of her collar and the last colour the mirror turned before she'd appeared, and they seemed to look right through Reid, as she studied him. "I'm just here to make sure you haven't done anything too stupid and you're taking care of Chaz's book. Instead, I find you with a brand new bandage, a revolver, and a fading smell of smoke. That better not be the Cosgrove."  
  
"It's not the Cosgrove. The Cosgrove is perfectly safe and nowhere near any mirrors." Reid squinted at the cat. "If you can come out of mirrors, can you take me back with you? I'd like to actually return the Cosgrove. I've finished reading it."  
  
"Already? That's a heavy book to be done with so quickly."  
  
"I read quickly."  
  
"Ah, but how much of it do you really take in?" Hafidha's tail swished behind her, as she leaned forward. "How would you say that Maps interacts with Clocks?"  
  
"Page three hundred and twenty seven. In short, the time experienced by a person between two places is almost always the same, no matter how those places may have moved since the last time they were encountered, but the time experienced by those waiting for them varies widely by the expected static time in that locale. The knowledge of travel by the person waiting will also affect the experience of time passing between the exit point and the re-entry point." Reid blinked up at her, unimpressed. "I didn't know there was going to be a _test_."  
  
"Oh, poor Spencer. There's always a test." Hafidha straightened up and sniffed the air. "But, I think you know that. What did you try to write?"  
  
"A mistake forged into a triumph," Reid admitted, holding up his bandaged hand. "I had to know."  
  
"You read it off his wrist."  
  
"I did. And I thought 'how destructive can a symbol really be, if it's written in flesh?'" Reid tipped his head contemplatively. "And now I have an answer and so many more questions."  
  
"Don't study the Correspondence," Hafidha warned. "All your kind ever manage to do is set themselves on fire."  
  
"Is that what happened to Dr Villette's arm? I know he said something about his thesis--"  
  
"And I know he told you to call him Chaz," Hafidha cut in, "but you don't know him well enough to be asking about his scars or why he's marked as he is."  
  
"I hardly know him at all."  
  
"Well, Chazzie likes you, and he doesn't just go around _liking people_ , so I'm here to make sure there's enough of you left for him to keep liking. To make sure you don't do..." Hafidha peered at the smudged, almost removed, burn mark on the edge of the bathtub, and then gave Reid the single most disdainful look he could remember having been the target of from any species. "... that."  
  
Reid cleared his throat and looked at least moderately abashed.  
  
"Up, up! And put that thing away, before someone gets hurt," Hafidha scolded, flicking her tail. "You have more glass than you think you do. Men always do. You need to make sure you keep it covered, if you're not using it. If you have maps, don't tell me about them, don't show them to me, but make sure they're well-hidden and no-one knows you have them. Come on, you've got some work to do, if we're going to keep you alive and well."

* * *

It was late, when he finally made it to the shop on the corner, which wasn't on the corner he was expecting, but it took him almost the same amount of time to get there, just as Cosgrove had suggested. It didn't help that the name had finally been changed, the Bazaar at last permitting 'Karimi & Daughters', which seemed a bit ostentatious for a shop only slightly larger than his living room.  
  
A bit of wandering down the short aisles demonstrated they'd started importing from the Bazaar, as well -- mushroom goods occupied a notable section of the shelves, where Surface wares were no longer available. He picked up a tin of something called Golden Topper, apparently some sort of pre-prepared mushroom dish that just had to be heated and served, like the tinned stuffed tomatoes he'd eaten so many times because he could just throw a tin in his bag and not think about it. They'd never been amazing, but they were better than vending machine tuna sandwiches. So, maybe these would be the same -- a not-terrible impression of a decent dish, packed in enough sauce to keep it airtight. He hadn't actually come out to buy food, but given that he hadn't bought more than a few tins of soup and coffee since the Fall -- and wasn't it odd how quickly that phrasing had gained traction -- he should probably at least pretend to put food in the cupboards. Incorruptible Biscuits or Murgatroyd's Fungal Crackers? Neither sounded like a fantastic idea. Really, he'd just wanted some saltines, but that wasn't going to happen. Fungal crackers it was, then, if only because they sounded less like something to break one's teeth on. Besides, baked mushroom wasn't a horrible idea, really, just... the name could be more appealing. He noticed the Carnelian export seal, when he picked up the box. Of course, Murgatroyd's wouldn't be manufacturing anything in London, since London wasn't there any more.  
  
Bandages, though. He really needed bandages for his hand, and maybe some more burn gel. He'd done enough damage that someone with less self-confidence and more faith in the infallibility of professional medical care would probably have taken it to the urgent care, but it really wasn't _that_ bad. He'd done worse to himself. UnSubs had done a lot worse to him. But, it was still the kind of bad that demanded a topical anaesthetic, because the pain was disrupting his train of thought every few seconds, and he was not going to stand for it. He thought maybe he should sit down for it, really. It was making him dizzy, again. Or maybe that was the part where he'd skipped lunch. And dinner, if it was as late as he remembered it being.  
  
Right, bandages, burn gel, and antiseptic-anaesthetic spray, and a few tubes of antibacterial ointments he was relatively sure he wasn't allergic to went into the basket, and he was incredibly pleased to find they were all still brands he recognised. Probably no one else had gotten into the Correspondence, yet, and it wasn't like anyone was getting sunburns, down here. And then, back around the end of the aisle to the incredibly limited, but usually far more than enough for him, selection of foods. No bread. No breakfast cereal. He grabbed the last three granola bars stuck on the back of a shelf and spent some time staring at the pasta options, most of which was now made of some combination of potato and mushroom, in brands he'd never heard of. Actually, potato and mushroom sounded pretty good, and he grabbed two bags of tortellini and some wide potato noodles that looked like they might work in place of egg noodles.  
  
Coffee. He needed more coffee, and that was easy enough to come by. But, no sugar. No sugar substitutes. The whole section was now stacked with varying types of honey that proclaimed themselves to be free of the exile's rose. A particularly expensive brand declared itself to be '100% Huzzite honey from the Elder Continent', and had a small symbol on the back with the phrase 'say no to lamplighter honeys' around it. He had no idea what the difference was, but remembering what Dr Villette had said about 'Prisoner's Honey' -- which had a rather portentious sound -- the reassurances on the jars were probably to establish that these honeys were not that honey. He wasn't sure he was thrilled with the idea of putting honey in his coffee, but he picked the Huzzite honey out of curiosity. He was sure he'd seen something about the Elder Continent in Cosgrove, but he couldn't find the reference in his head, probably because his hand hurt enough that it was going to be an act of will to make it through the act of paying for what he'd managed to get in the basket. It would be enough, for now. He'd care again, next week.   
  
As he approached the register, he realised that he hadn't seen fresh fruit or vegetables since he'd gotten out of the hospital, and he wondered if he'd ever see them again. No, that was ridiculous. Enough fruit and vegetables were being grown in artificial light on the Surface that it was just a matter of time, before things were back to normal. It hadn't really been long enough for anyone to implement that kind of transition. He spotted a basket of discount makeup brushes and sponges on the corner of the counter, and added a double-mirror compact to his purchases. Adding more mirrors might be a terrible idea, but it might also open possibilities for him he hadn't previously considered.  
  
Somehow he managed to get his wallet out of his pocket and pay, without dropping anything, and the young woman whose name he usually remembered remarked that he wasn't looking so good. He smiled weakly and assured her he was just tired, picking up the bags in his unbandaged hand. All he had to do was make it home, he thought, as he pushed open the door and flinched at the sound of the bells over his head. Breathing deeply and walking slowly, he managed to set a course in a direction he suspected would take him home. Half a block down, a woman lunged out of an alley, teeth bared, wielding a knife.  
  
He couldn't move fast enough, and he knew it, but he staggered back and swung the bag up between them, catching the first swing of the knife across a bag of tortellini, from the sound of it. He was aware of the wrong things, and he was sure he was going to die, but he lashed out with his bandaged hand, trying to catch the knife arm, before it could pull back for another strike. Instead, the woman suddenly lifted off the ground, two huge Clay fingers around her neck.  
  
"Funny running into you here," Duke greeted Reid, giving the woman a sharp shake. "She'll be fine once she drops it. Can you get it away from her without touching it?"  
  
Thoughtlessly, Reid wrapped his bandaged hand around the woman's wrist, digging in his thumb until the knife slid from her fingers... right into his grocery bag. "Oh, that's... That's just great." He sighed, as Duke lowered the woman to the ground.  
  
"You got handcuffs?" Duke asked, still loosely holding onto the woman's neck.  
  
"No, I don't. I came out to get groceries, and I..." Reid blinked, but his vision stayed narrowed. Through the grey haze, he could see the pink and yellow stains spreading on the tightly-wound masking tape that kept the toilet paper attached to his hand. "I did not bring my badge, my gun, or my handcuffs."  
  
Duke watched him wobble. "You look like you just had your soul ripped out your nose by an incompetent spirifer."  
  
"I'm fine," Reid insisted, patting his pockets for his phone. Prentiss had finally trained him not to leave home without it, and while he was absolutely certain it shouldn't work in the Neath, unfortunately, it did. Or fortunately, in this particular case. He leaned against the wall, trying to catch his breath, and put down the groceries to use his good hand for the phone. His contacts list was blurrier than he remembered it being, but he was pretty sure the top one would be Prentiss. If it wasn't it would be JJ. Either way.  
  
The phone was answered in the middle of the first ring. "Reid? What happened? You never use this phone."  
  
"I've got a Jack. Ambulance and hazmat. For her. I'm fine," he panted, increasingly dizzy.  
  
"Did you get stabbed?" Prentiss asked.  
  
"No. No, I did not get stabbed. Tell whoever's coming not to shoot the Clay Man." His voice sounded like it was at the other end of a long tunnel. "It's Duke."  
  
"Reid? Don't hang up. Put your phone on speaker and put it back in your pocket. We'll be there as fast as we can."  
  
"Yeah, sure. We're on the corner of, ah... I'm ... I have no idea where we are. Karimi and Daughters. The old Sunbow Market, if you can find it."  
  
"We have your GPS, Reid," Prentiss reminded him, obviously distracted as she tried to send a group text to the rest of the team and see if she could get the locals there first.  
  
"Do you? Are you sure about that? We're not on the Surface, Emily." Reid could feel the warmth as his nose started to run, and when he blotted it with the bandaged hand, the tape turned a brilliant red. "I think I'm just going to sit down a minute."


	8. Chapter 8

By the time the local police arrived, almost fifteen minutes later, Duke was sitting on the sidewalk next to Reid, talking to Prentiss on the phone that lay between them, while he held the Jack's wrists in one hand. Reid sat with his knees up and his face mashed against them, but he staggered to his feet and tried to pick up the phone, when he heard the sirens.  
  
"Constables are here," Duke told Prentiss, hoping Reid's scrabbling at the phone didn't drown out the words.  
  
Reid held up his bandaged hand, gesturing for the officers not to come closer, well aware of the smears of blood on his face. "I'm Agent Reid. I don't have any identification on me, but I know SSA Prentiss called you, and I have her on the phone. The gentleman on my left is named Duke, and he's helped me apprehend this young woman who assaulted me with a knife."  
  
"I didn't do anything!" the woman sobbed. "I don't know who they are or why I'm here! I was just going to make a salad! You have to help me!"  
  
"We _are_ going to help you," Reid promised, focusing all his will on staying upright. "We think you were... drugged." He looked back at the officers and held out the phone on the flat of his hand, keeping his other hand clearly visible. "It's the Jack of Smiles case. She needs an ambulance. Where's the ambulance?"  
  
"You look like _you_ need the ambulance, sir," one of the officers told him.  
  
"The head injury isn't recent, and I'll be fine in a few hours. Please take the phone and confirm my identity, because I would like to go home and put ice on my face."  
  
The phone squawked in his hand. "Reid, they know who you are, and they're telling me you need an ambulance."  
  
" _Prentiss_ , I do not need an ambulance. What I need is a hazmat team, so I can take my groceries home without a contaminated Jack's knife in the bag!"  
  
"Ah, Agent, can you help us get the woman ... out of the statue? We're not real sure what you did here..." One of the officers peered at Duke's hand.  
  
"You could try asking the statue to let go," Duke suggested, still holding the woman's wrists as the officer staggered back in shock. "Never met a Clay Man, have you? I'm Duke, and I suggest cuffing her before I let go. She stabbed Dr Reid right in the produce."  
  
"The noodles, actually," Reid corrected, eyes squeezed tightly shut, as he tried to maintain his balance, which was actually getting better. "Unfortunately, she dropped the contaminated knife -- which caused her temporary murderous episode -- into my groceries, so if I could get an ETA on hazmat, that would be great. I'm hungry, I'm tired, and the stress is making my nose bleed. It looks serious, but I promise you, it's not. Again, she did not do this to me."  
  
"Hazmat's lost again, and the street moved and took the ambulance with it, but it's only about a minute out, now. No sirens, because everyone here is at least standing and talking." An officer shrugged and then went to help his partner with the woman.  
  
"Tell the hazmat driver to stop taking advice from the GPS and just guess where we are. I understand that's the least advisable option under most circumstances, but I can promise you they'll get here faster in this particular one. The streets are shifting again, which means the driver's internal sense of where they are and where they're going is probably a lot more accurate than the maps." Reid sounded and felt a lot more coherent than he had even a few minutes ago, which meant that any bleeding he'd done had actually exited his skull, and had also probably stopped. Still, he'd have to look when he got home, and see if it was just his nose or if he had a black eye, again. "Prentiss, I think we've got this under control, so I'm going to hang up. Don't worry about me, I'll call you when I get home. I'll have the Jack kept overnight for unknown drugs, and send the knife... ah... what are we doing with the knives?"  
  
"Have the knife handled as type-A radioactive material, and the box delivered to the office, for now." Prentiss paused. "You're sure you're okay? You sound better, but..."  
  
"I probably look like I've been hit with a lamppost, perhaps unsurprisingly."  
  
"I'll walk him home," Duke promised, as the ambulance finally arrived, and the police loaded the Jack into the back of it, pointing at Reid as they talked to the medics. "He's gonna be just fine."  
  
"She got you good, didn't she?" a medic asked, as Reid hung up the phone and dropped it back into his pocket.  
  
"Absolutely none of this was her. She stabbed my _groceries_. I had a head injury in the Fall, and I'm not supposed to get too stressed, or..." Reid gestured at his blood-smeared face. "I'm really-- Actually, do you have a strong lidocaine? I had a minor cooking accident, earlier, and I came out to get more burn gel for my hand..." He peeled off the tape and held out his burned hand.  
  
"Ah, you should really go to the hospital for that. That's pretty bad."  
  
Reid shook his head and regretted it. "It's not as bad as it looks right now. I just bled all over it. The worst of it is the side of my hand, but even that should be fine in a few days, if I keep it clean and wrapped. It hurts quite a bit, though, and I'd prefer to avoid resorting to analgesics because of some... ah, other internal injuries I suffered. All I'm asking for is some five percent lidocaine, so I can get through the next couple of days. I'd rather not occupy emergency time and space with something I honestly can treat, myself. I know things have been a bit overcrowded since the Fall."  
  
"Yeah, all right, walk over there with me and we'll get you cleaned up a little, and I'll wrap that for you." The medic nodded. "But the minute that looks infected--"  
  
"Don't worry," Duke called over. "I'm good friends with his doctor. Just make sure he can get home without passing out from the pain, and I'll make sure somebody looks at it."  
  
"Jesus." The medic shook his head as he wiped blood off Reid's face. "This place is getting to me. I could swear that statue was talking to me. There's a guy standing next to it, right?"  
  
"Duke just likes spooking people, I think," Reid said, not answering the question at all.

* * *

Duke, it turned out, did not fit through the door. But, he sent Reid upstairs with instructions to keep one mirror by his side, because he was going to have one of the others call and check on him. Reid continued to insist he was fine, but did remember he'd just bought the small mirrors, and once he was back on the sofa with a bag of ice in a bowl, the honey, and the box of fungal crackers, he opened the compact and left it on the table. There was, he decided, a reason for cel phones, and it was so he didn't have to get back up to use his desk phone to call Prentiss. He was better, but not better enough to really want to stand up again, until he'd eaten and maybe had a nap.  
  
He dipped a cracker in the honey and tried it, finding it tasted something like a roasted portobello mushroom he'd once had at a restaurant he'd never be able to afford again, but as if that mushroom had been powdered and pressed into a cracker and then... well, dipped in honey. It wasn't terrible. A bit of an acquired taste, maybe, but one he'd probably acquire in the next couple of hours. Licking the honey off his fingertips, he picked up the phone and called Prentiss.  
  
"It's me. I'm home, I'm eating, everything's fine. Total losses: half a bag of tortellini, a little blood, and my pride. So, I'm going to sit here and eat a box of, ah... 'fungal crackers' and try to stop having an exciting day. You'll have my report in the morning."  
  
"I've been informed you had some pretty serious burns, too..."  
  
Reid breathed a tired sound. "Totally unrelated. The working rat scared the absolute crap out of me, and I smacked the frying pan and then tried to catch it, like the genius I am. Minor kitchen accident. I just needed some burn gel and something else to eat, and that is how I happened to be coming out of the shop, just in time to walk into a Jack. I'm not enjoying today."  
  
He was not going to admit he'd been experimenting with the Correspondence. A stupid kitchen accident was the kind of thing they'd make jokes about for weeks, but a word about the Correspondence would have Prentiss thinking he was hallucinating, again, and JJ and Garcia would be parked at his door, entertaining each other loudly, until he let them in so the neighbours would stop staring. He knew how this worked, and he just wasn't in the mood.  
  
"Working... rat?" Prentiss asked, and Reid realised that in his exhaustion, he'd substituted one Neathy reason for another.  
  
"Emily, you've accepted Clay Men and Rubbery Men. Trust me when I tell you that my building maintenance is now managed by a trousers-wearing rat named Harvey, and that he has an incredibly unfortunate habit of _scaring the crap out of me_. Duke assures me this is the normal order of things in the Neath, and I'll get used to them."  
  
"What was Duke doing down there, anyway?"  
  
"He said he'd been visiting some friends. I've heard there are Clay settlements underground, which would make sense, since he came out of an alley with both sewer access and basement doors. I didn't feel the need to ask too many questions, considering he'd just saved my life, but I might later, when I no longer feel like I've taken a lamppost to the face, once again." Reid tipped the phone up so he could still hear, but Prentiss wouldn't be subjected to the cracker he slipped into his mouth. The taste really was starting to grow on him.  
  
"Headache?" she asked, sympathetically.  
  
"Not a bad one. As long as I keep my right eye closed, it doesn't hurt. Unsurprisingly, I have a black eye, again, but that won't last. It's only right by my nose, this time, but it's putting pressure on my eye. I'd take something for the swelling, but--"  
  
"You can't. I know." Prentiss sighed. "You want to stay home, tomorrow? I think we can handle your Jack without you. In fact, as the victim, you can't come anywhere near this one."  
  
"Right, right." Reid took a deep breath that felt like he was trying to jam his sinus lining into his tear duct. "Maybe I'll go up and see Superintendent Falkner. It's only a couple of stops on the train."  
  
"Maybe you should sleep in. I'm just saying."  
  
"When have I ever slept in? I'm pretty sure that would require sleeping more consecutive hours than I'm capable of." Reid breathed a laugh. "Don't worry. I promise you won't see me, tomorrow. I don't promise I won't call you with another Jack, because they're in my neighbourhood, now. At least we have the knife. At the scene, this one said the last thing she remembered was starting to make a salad, so it might be worth asking if she remembers where she got the knife she was using. It looked like a fairly normal kitchen knife, when I finally got a look at it."  
  
"Normal kitchen knife? Help me out, here, Spencer."  
  
"Look, I own two knives. One of them is a steak knife and the other one is bigger than a steak knife. I can tell you what she had was a kitchen knife, and not a utility knife. I've gotten pretty good at utility knives and butcher's knives, over the years, but kitchen knives aren't really my speciality. The kind of killings we deal with rarely involve kitchen knives and when they do, Rossi knows better than I do. And it doesn't matter how I describe it, because _you have the knife_." Reid tipped his head until his neck popped, and felt the blood still caught in his sinuses run down the back of his throat. "It's a kitchen knife and she was doing something she would've wanted a kitchen knife for, so the story she was telling at the scene makes sense. That's my point. If she found the knife in a second-hand shop or inherited it or borrowed it, she might not have been touching it long enough to be affected until today, but the source of her knife may also have more knives."  
  
"But, if she bought it, wouldn't whoever set up the display have killed someone? It seems like the kind of thing we would've noticed."  
  
"Again, they might not have touched it for long enough. And some people may be more quickly affected than others. We don't know. But, now you have a knife, so some limited testing could be done." Reid tipped his head back and rested the bag of ice against the side of his nose. "I'd volunteer, but I really shouldn't."  
  
"No, you shouldn't. Because you should be in bed."  
  
Reid hung up on her.. It wasn't polite, but he was done having that conversation. His head hurt enough without the help. He was going to sit here and eat fungal crackers until he felt vaguely human again.  
  
Half a box of crackers and a signifiant amount of honey later, he was starting to feel a little less like he'd been hit with a lamppost all over again. His head was sore, his hand was sore, and the mirrors told him he still looked like he'd been punched in the face, but the bruising and swelling was going back down, already. What he was not expecting as he peered at the bruise that curved around the inner side of his eyesocket was for a small black paw to reach out of the other mirror and tap him on the cheek.  
  
He dropped the mirror in shock, landing it in the box of crackers in his lap.  
  
"Are these Murgatroyd's? This smells like a box of Murgatroyd's," Hafidha muttered, suspiciously. "My brother says you need to get up and answer the proper mirror. Duke sent a message that we should check on you."  
  
Reid groaned. "Do I have to get up? I'm finally almost comfortable."  
  
"You'll be a lot more comfortable once Chaz gets to you," Hafidha promised, the box rustling as she tried to drag a cracker through the small mirror. "He's carrying half the stock of Gebrandt's."  
  
Reid, having no idea what Gebrandt's was, took her word for it, setting the box back on the coffee table before he got up and headed into the bathroom, pulling back the curtain they'd hung in front of the mirror that afternoon.  
  
"And if I don't feel like an idiot," he said to his reflection, just before the mirror turned that strange melting orange colour again. It was like a postcard of a sunset. It reminded him of the unyielding sun hanging over the desert, in a cloudless sky, seen through the haze of red-orange dust, but that wasn't the right colour at all, was it? And then he stepped aside as the image of something that wasn't quite a coyote folded out into a man, standing beside him.  
  
"There are easier ways to get here, like knocking on the door," Reid pointed out, gesturing for Chaz to leave the bathroom ahead of him, as he pulled the curtain over the mirror again.  
  
"Easier for whom?" Chaz replied, already sorting through his bag as he walked out into the living room. "I was in Ealing Gardens, and I didn't want to wait for the train and then try to get a cab across town, with the roads still... doing whatever the roads are doing, this week. London was bad, but it wasn't this bad. These early days are really wretched, aren't they?"  
  
"Worse for you, I imagine. Everything you know is gone." Reid slipped past him, heading back to the rattling box of crackers, from which he finally removed the compact, setting it on the table.  
  
Hafidha patted his hand. "I'm out. Cover this up when I'm gone. And don't you let the Jacks get my little brother, you hear me, human?"  
  
"I'll do my best," he assured her, snapping the compact shut as the paw pulled back through.  
  
Chaz dragged over a chair from under the window and sat down, pulling a dark blue bottle from his bag and offering it to Reid. "I didn't realise how badly you were still injured, or I'd have offered sooner."  
  
"What... is it?" Reid asked, hesitating as if he were afraid to touch the bottle.  
  
"Gebrandt's Tincture of Vigour. Take a spoonful four times a day, and that'll stop happening to your face. Well, assuming you're not bleeding around your brain..."  
  
"I'm not. Not _now_. However badly I got hit, in the Fall, the worst has healed. There's just some lasting damage to my eye socket and the side of my nose. It should clear up in a few more weeks. Possibly longer, if I keep running into Jacks in the course of daily events." Reid still didn't take the bottle. In fact, he looked at anything except the bottle. "I don't really need painkillers."  
  
"Good! Because I didn't bring any. Duke heard you talking to the medic about that, so I left the laudanum behind. Not that I'd bring laudanum for a head injury anyway. Might've if it was just your hand, but..."  
  
"I dislike opiates," Reid said, quietly, finally accepting the bottle and reading the ingredients with one eye closed. "I don't recognise any of these things."  
  
"I'm not surprised. They're all native plants. All Gebrandt's Tincture does is accelerate the natural healing process, a bit, and it works less well if you use it too often. There's only so much abuse the body can take. There have been cases, though, where the dead were revived from heart wounds with the application of a combination of honey and Gebrandt's Tincture. I will swear by it. It's done a lot for me." Chaz pushed up his sleeves, displaying the knobby scars that circled his wrists, one far more clearly than the other, and Reid's eyes lingered on the symbol, where the light bent around that one. "I don't want to talk about it, but Gebrandt's Tincture put the skin back on me in half the time."  
  
"A spoonful four times a day?" Reid asked, fairly certain that as long as he didn't turn out to be allergic to anything in it, an opiate-free herbal tincture was unlikely to make things worse. Unless... "It's not going to raise my blood pressure, is it?"  
  
"Nope. Again, wouldn't give it to you if it would. Not with a head injury. It'll affect your breathing, though. You're going to get more oxygen, so just make sure you don't hyperventilate. I'm here to sit with you and make sure you're okay. Every once in a while, a Surfacer has a strong reaction to it and gets it into their head that they're totally healed or _totally invincible_ , and I'd like to make sure you don't do anything... ah..." Chaz squinted apologetically.  
  
Reid finished the sentence. "Stupid."  
  
"Inadvisable," Chaz said, tactfully. "And I'll cook dinner, too."  
  
Reid looked like he might object, but couldn't quite bring himself to do so, having recognised the validity of the point Dr Villette was making. "I'm not in the habit of having people in my home."  
  
"I can tell. If you want me to go, I will, but I'm taking the Gebrandt's." Chaz shrugged and his coat settled around him as if it hung on muscles that were not his shoulders. "Safety precaution."  
  
And Reid knew the right answer was to tell him to go. That had always been the answer, and it should continue to be. This was not a safe situation he'd found himself in, but it was the second time he'd been alone with Dr Villette in a less than public place, and nothing in the least bit untoward had happened last time. And he had wanted to return the Cosgrove, before anything happened to it. But, that didn't involve the man staying. But, he wanted Villette to stay. Which wasn't a thing he should've wanted, but there it was. He was curious. He felt a certain sympathy for the man who had lost so much, but kept reaching out, kept trying to _help him_. Which, honestly, was suspicious in its own way. Who was to say Villette wasn't responsible for the Jacks, and just trying to insert himself into the investigation?  
  
He swallowed and looked across the coffee table. "I'd like to discuss the Cosgrove, if you're going to be here, anyway. There were some references I didn't quite understand. Remind me to give that back to you, before you go. And dinner... There's not much here. I was just going to make a pot of tortellini."  
  
"You probably shouldn't be cooking with your hand like that."  
  
"I've done worse."  
  
"Let me do you better. I've got skills in the arts of making edible suppers out of bizarre mushroom products."  
  
"I'm still not over the rubbery lumps."  
  
"Were they, or were they not, the best deep fried seafood you've had?" Chaz crossed his arms.  
  
Reid considered how to answer that question. "I don't generally eat much deep fried seafood, but they were definitely better than fish sticks."  
  
"Damned with faint praise!" Chaz laughed. "All right, they're not as good as the Mutton Island ones you can get during the festivals. But, you do eat fish, right? Just not deep fried?"  
  
"I do. It's not my first choice, but it's rarely a bad choice."  
  
Chaz slipped a velvet-bagged mirror out of his bag. "Let me bother a few people, and I'll get something to go with that tortellini. If we're debating Cosgrove, I'd like to make sure you've eaten _well_."


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy Valentine's day! Have a chapter!

The Cosgrove book was on the table beside them to one side, Dr Villette's mirror to the other side, and a plate of fungal crackers sat between them, topped with fish paste and mushroom jam. At some point, they'd opened a bottle of Greyfields, and the smell of roasting fish emanated from the kitchen. All in all, this wasn't the worst way to spend an evening, Reid decided, snapping another cracker in half and folding it into his mouth, which Dr Villette had assured him was the correct way to eat them. Trying to bite into them just shattered the cracker into hundreds of tiny pieces, leaving one with a handful of topping, or worse, wearing it.  
  
He took a sip of the Greyfields to get a bit of cracker unstuck from the back of his tongue, and then asked, "Who was the woman who was shouting at you?"  
  
"Oh, that's Nikki. I didn't realise she was in the Khanate, again, and managed to lean into a conversation with a displeased diplomat about an incident involving fluke spines. In the middle of a tea shop, no less. Thankfully, no one else saw me, and I called her back after a bit, at which time she handed me my ass, which I absolutely deserved. And then I called Brady about the fish." Chaz took another cracker for himself. "He's convinced I'm on a date with a Surfacer girl. I'm just going to let him think that. He doesn't need to know where I am or who I'm with. If anyone needs me, Hafs can find me."  
  
"Fluke spines? That's something ... Rubbery, right? Cosgrove mentions flukes in a few places, but under the assumption that readers will already be familiar with them. All I can tell is that they're dangerous sea creatures with long spines, and that they're somehow connected to the Rubbery Men?" Reid sipped his wine, again, trying to decipher the unusual flavour. It called itself a mushroom wine, and he wondered exactly what that entailed.  
  
"Flukes are another species from the same place as the Rubbery Men. I'm not as good at Rubbery as I am at languages I can actually pronounce, but many of them have learned to write English. Unfortunately, some concepts still don't quite translate properly. I can't figure out if the flukes are their gods, their creators in a scientific sense, or their evolutionary ancestors. Any of these things is equally possible, but don't let 'god' fool you, flukes are genuine, physical creatures that mostly live in water, although I've heard there's a type of fluke that lives in the skies. They're round, from the top, which is what most people see of them -- a ball of spikes floating on the water -- but they extend to a point about three or four times where you'd expect the sphere to end below the water, all of it covered in spines." Chaz shifted in the chair, still with his coat on. "So, yes. They're big, dangerous sea monsters, and they're related to Rubbery Men. Fluke spines are important for other reasons. They can be used to remove or exchange memories. We used them, sometimes, with people who'd seen horrible things. The fluke spine isn't the most painless solution, but in some cases, you have to make do with what you have. Fluke memories, as it turns out, are admissible in court."  
  
"Have you--?"  
  
"Personally experienced other people's memories of the worst experiences of their lives? Yeah, that's... I do a lot of that." Chaz picked up the bottle of wine and topped off his own glass with a pointed and mildly reflective look at Reid. "Did you find Cosgrove readable? I know he's a little dense, and I mean that in all the ways it could be taken."  
  
"I'm an academic. It reads like any number of things I've reviewed recently." Reid picked up a cracker, avoiding the man's eyes, though he couldn't say why. "Of course, had this come into my possession before the Fall, I'd have encouraged the cosmologists to sober up before submitting. Possibly before writing."  
  
"Yeah, he's... a little nuts around the edges. Professional opinion as a certified and certifiable alienist. The Dawn Machine did him no favours. Of course, it's questionable whether it did any of us any favours. It seemed like a good idea at the time, and I really do understand why, but that doesn't mean I appreciate what it had become by the time I came to London." As Chaz took an impolitely large swallow of wine, the mirror on the table burst into a verdant glow, the illumination causing the preserved orchid in the glass case in the corner of Reid's bookcase to generate a solid root and a new stem, heavy with blossoms, if also heavily confined beneath the dome. As quickly as the green came, it was replaced by a flash of some impossible red that meant nothing and everything to the untrained eye.  
  
Chaz choked down the wine and coughed, leaning into the mirror's view. "What, Langly? I'm kind of in the middle of something."  
  
"Yeah, I know where you are and what you're 'in the middle' of. You and your surface--"  
  
Reid leaned forward, recognising the voice, and wanting to see the face that went with it. He half-expected another cat like Hafidha, but what he found was very much not that. A pale man, mostly nose, with washed-out blue eyes behind thick glasses, the whole face framed in waves of lank, greasy-looking light blond hair, suddenly stopped looking at Dr Villette as his shadow crossed the glass, those pale eyes landing on him, instead.  
  
And in that moment, the rush of dream, of impossible memory, slammed into his head harder than the lamppost. Long fingers tangled in his hair, pale sweat-streaked skin against red, red, _not-red_ sheets, the taste of already-tasted darkdrop coffee and the feel of teeth clacking against his own. His chest ached, and after a moment, it wasn't the only part of him that did. Waking up to the sound of a steam engine, against white sheets, to someone else's hair stuck to his face, under glass tinted against what he knew to be the deadly light of a foreign sun. Watching those ice blue eyes flutter shut above him, sweat dripping down onto his skin, and knowing this face wasn't the one he knew, wasn't the one that belonged in these visions. He felt himself being torn apart, centuries of grief like a leaden ball in his chest suddenly exploding into knives. He wanted, and he could not have. What he needed, he could not remember. His eyes were watering from being open for so long, but the droplets didn't splash on the glass, disappearing through it, as the vision faded and the man behind the glass came back into view, paler still than he had been, looking like he'd just woken from a nightmare.  
  
"What in Hell, Villette?" the man in the glass demanded.  
  
Chaz sat back, stunned, uncertain what he'd just seen some small part of. "I thought you knew where I was and what I was doing," he retorted, absently.  
  
"Who in the wastes of Hell is that? What are you trying to do to me?" the man in the glass snapped, the volume of his voice not covering how badly shaken he looked. "Did you even check to see if he was possessed?"  
  
"He's not possessed," Chaz promised.  
  
"I think the tincture disagrees with me," Reid ventured, subtly tugging down the bottom of his sweater.  
  
"I might be willing to accept that, if you'd actually had any." Chaz pointed to the still-full bottle, wax seal still intact over the cork. "Anyway, Langly, this is Dr Spencer Reid of Washington, an Inspector working on the Jacks. Again. Spencer, this is Langly, the Lord Langley of Langley Hall, in Eleutheria. I promise you only two of the three 'Langley's in that sentence are spelled the same way."  
  
"Okay, all right, that's who he is, but that doesn't tell me shit about what he is. Swear to me, Villette. Swear to me he's not a Fingerking. Or several Fingerkings..."  
  
"He's not possessed, Langly. He's just-- Do you remember when I interrupted your bath, a few weeks ago? I said I found someone dying on my doorstep? This is him, and I'd be able to tell if he was a Fingerking, Langly, before you start with that again. I could tell with my eyes closed, and you know it."  
  
"Your eyes are open," Langly huffed. "But, yeah, okay, fine. You'd probably know if you were boning a snake."  
  
" _Excuse me!?_ " Reid looked horrified.  
  
"I'm not sleeping with him, not that it would particularly be your business if I was!" Chaz winged a loaded cracker through the mirror and watched it bounce off Langly's glasses.  
  
"Real mature, Villette. If you're not slipping the sausage to the dead guy, then why's he sitting there with a stiffy you could run a flag up? You gonna tell me that's rigor mortis?"  
  
"You can't even see his--" Chaz started, but Langly cut him off, tapping the side of his own glasses.  
  
"Yes, I can."  
  
"More to the point, why are you staring at my crotch?" Reid demanded, leaning forward again, but trying not to look Langly in the eye, this time.  
  
" _Much_ more to the point, why are you calling me in the middle of dinner?" Chaz asked, folding another cracker into his mouth. " _You_ started this."  
  
"Because who else am I going to call if I need forty pounds of brass, a Stygian ivory harpoon -- you know, one of those ones from the Chelonate, and a sliver of old Dawny?"  
  
"... You want _what_?" Chaz got very still, his eyes flicking to Reid after a long moment. "Go take the fish out of the oven, before it's impossible to eat."  
  
"You know he can still hear us, right? And you know that I know that?" Langly drawled.  
  
"I don't care if he can hear us. I care that you don't ruin our supper." Chaz's eyes flashed as they returned to the mirror. "Still not the answer to my question. What do you want with an Element of Dawn?"  
  
"I don't _want_ anything to do with the Dawn Machine or any part of it, but this... it's about my uncle. He died, I got the house. Sounds easy, right? Except what I didn't know was that I inherited his debts and obligations, because they're written to apply to Lord Langley, and the only way I'm not the Lord Langley is if I die and stay dead, and then it's somebody else's problem. The title only transfers on final death, VIllette. Because the contract was written by a Judgement."  
  
Chaz whistled on his next inhale, eyebrows lifting. "So, what you're telling me is you have to get an Element of Dawn for the Halved? Any idea what's going on?"  
  
"Albion's Clockwork Jackass has been 'discourteous'." Langly looked completely unimpressed. "So, we, and by 'we' I mean 'I' but you know Byers and Frohike aren't going to let me do it by myself, need to come up with the last of the components and figure out how to, ah... build the gift the Courtesy demands of the occasion."  
  
"You're going to murder a Sun."  
  
"Like Hell am I murdering anything! I'm not a killer, Villette! And I don't like corpses! Even if I do think somebody needs to do something about that saints-damned mechanical monstrosity that's festering in Albion!" Langly rubbed his face, a hand with a red mark shoving his glasses up. They landed lopsided, and he made no move to correct that, but they settled when he tipped his head. "And that's what we're going to do. We're going to use this opportunity and the backing of another Judgement to do something about the bastard-box. What's supposed to happen is we run parts to the Sequencers, and they ... well, make it stop violating the Courtesy. As best as they can. Assuming they can. This is just a warning. This is also an opportunity to inject a little midnight into Clockwork, which we're hoping will serve the same purpose. You know I wouldn't be breathing too close to the Sequencers, if I didn't think I could sabotage that glass-making ... _thing_." His fingers clipped through the glass with that gesture. "So, yeah. I need an Element. And then I need to convert an Element. So, I need forty pounds of brass from Hell and a Chelonian harpoon, because we've got everything else."  
  
"When?" Chaz asked, hoping the answer wouldn't be yesterday or something. He hated having to deal with the Hours of the High Wilderness.  
  
"I don't know, somewhere in the next couple of weeks. Time's a little round, here, right now." Langly scratched idly at a welt rising on his forearm.  
  
Reid set a plate on the corner of the table next to Chaz, taking his own back to the couch, where he sat down, fundamentally confused on multiple levels. Murdering a sun? The Element of Dawn, he at least assumed, had to be something about the Dawn Machine, which he knew from Cosgrove -- It was the Neath's mechanical sun. Which didn't sound like a terrible idea, to be honest. It would be rather dark without it. But, Cosgrove had implied some unfortunate side effects, and Dr Villette had come out and said the thing had been a mistake, but he still had no idea why.  
  
So the Clockwork, er, _Jackass_ was most likely the mechanical sun of Albion. That made a certain sense. Albion was where London had gone. London had built the Dawn Machine. They probably still wanted sunlight in some form. So, Langly was talking about... taking the parts of one mechanical sun and ... sabotaging them before they could be installed in another, to .. fix something? That almost made a certain amount of sense, he thought, taking a bite of the mushroom tortellini, which was almost as good as he'd hoped. The sauce Dr Villette had made improved it even further. All in all, a surprisingly good dish.  
  
Another sip of the Greyfields, as he half listened to the arrangements being made on the other side of the table. A Judgement. But, as an active entity, not something handed down. Maybe a word for some sort of high-ranking jurist? An analogue to an Attorney-General, maybe? And then he remembered Cosgrove's determined but somewhat deranged overlap between the Dawn Machine's light and the essence of law. Cosgrove had written that the machine's light was sunlight, and because of that, it made law. That had seemed strange at the time. It still seemed strange, but if this was a conversation about malfunctioning mechanical suns, maybe that was what Judgements did -- corrected the laws of the false suns? It could make sense. He'd ask, once Langly was gone.  
  
"Leave me an open mirror and I'll do what I can. A mirror you can actually find, please." Chaz ate another cracker, ignoring the plate in the hope he could avoid being that kind of rude, but still come out with a warm supper. "And do you need any general supplies? Nikki's in the Khanate for another few days, and Tan's down at Apis Meet, negotiating. It might be a little early for Surface goods, but now that we have an economically functional and politically important city again..."  
  
"You think you can get me some honey that hasn't been breathed on by devils or dragged out of suffering artists?"  
  
Chaz rolled his eyes. "Ask me something hard. I'll call you next week."  
  
A flick of his hand, and the mirror went back to reflecting the ceiling. "Sorry about that. About _him_. Hasn't got half the charm, I'm told, of the first Lord of Langley Hall."  
  
"No, that's... I'm... I'd like to meet him again, sometime. Maybe with a little more warning for both of us." Reid sipped his wine, trying to gather his thoughts. "I want to see if it happens again."  
  
"What did happen?" Chaz asked, after a brief pause, finally picking up his plate. "The two of you were staring at each other, and then he got ashy and you turned green. I was just about to intercede, when it stopped."  
  
"I had a strange vision, as if we'd met before, as if we'd known each other well. I didn't recognise anything in it, though." Reid shook his head. "I'm not sure what might have caused it."  
  
"Nor am I, but it's said that the first Lord Langley, spelled with an 'e', lost his lover in some horrible accident. That he built the house up at the command of the Halved -- the Eleutherian sun -- and waited there, until his lover returned to him, some say from the Far Shore. It is possible that the mirror the current Langly, no 'e', was using is one of the first Lord's mirrors, and that your connection, for whatever reason, passed through the remains of his dreams, in Parabola. I'm so used to filtering out the garbage in a connection that it wouldn't have affected me."  
  
"But... that's..." Reid stopped chewing and looked across the table.  
  
"Advanced Parabolan dynamics. Don't worry about it. We'll come back to that, when you're a little more used to the surrounding concepts. I promise you, we'll come back to the idea before you see Langly again. ... Assuming you keep your mirrors covered. He's almost as good as I am at some of the Parabolan arts and much better at others. And then there are the ones he's absolutely useless at, but that's neither here nor there."  
  
Reid nodded, relatively sure after having read Cosgrove that Dr Villette did mean to come back to the subject another time. "So, what about Judgements? What is Lord Langly trying to do, exactly?"  
  
"Judgements are the beings that make the fundamental laws of a place. Not human law, but things like physics and astronomy. The basic underlying mechanisms of a Judgement's kingdom are dependent on the laws of that Judgement. Which is probably where I should have started, but you'd have thought I was mad. And I know you still do, but _more mad_."  
  
"So, to combine that with Cosgrove, you're saying the Admiralty of London created a Judgement, when they made the Dawn Machine? And that's why the Treacheries exist?" Reid licked his teeth and stared at the table for a moment. "And the Treacheries aren't treacheries at all, because they're the fundamental laws established by the Judgement, but they're treacheries because they're not what the Admiralty expected. They took it rather personally, didn't they?"  
  
"Yes! Exactly! Well, mostly. The Treacheries are distortions of a Judgement's Law perpetuated by beings much lower on the Chain, like us. They're still technically within the Law's parameters, but you have to bend it pretty hard. The letter, as they say, but not the spirit.

"But, yes, the Dawn Machine and its counterparts, the Clockwork Sun and the Skin of the Sun, are fake Judgements. They're mechanical, and they don't work quite the way the creators intended. Clockwork has a lot of the same faults as the Dawn Machine, because it's built from the same basic blueprint, modified, of course, with what they'd learned after the complete cock ups with the Dawn Machine. Just not... modified enough." Chaz nodded excitedly, pleased to his bones that Reid had figured out that much on his own. "Now, the other half of that is that there are real Judgements, too, and just like the fake Judgements, they're all suns. And there are more of them than I've ever seen the kingdoms of, but the important ones, natural and false, for this story, are the Dawn Machine, the Clockwork Sun, and the Halved. The Halved is an unusual Judgement, but a natural one. Some say it's mad with grief after losing its other half, hence the name, but its light is ... not light. It emanates darkness throughout Eleutheria, which is its kingdom, and that's also where Langley Hall is. And Langley Hall, according to the stories about the first Lord Langley, was commissioned by the Halved in the ruins of what was once the greatest library known. That last may be propaganda. It usually is, with libraries. But, the Hall was intended to draw in those lost and outcast. Other 'halved', if you want to look at it that way, and Lord Langley, having lost his only love waited there for the Hall to draw him in. Which, eventually, it did."  
  
"You've talked a lot about Langley Hall, but not so much about the Courtesy or what's happening now."  
  
Chaz pointed at his full mouth with one hand and covered it with the other. "Because I'm eating. Hang on." He finished chewing and washed it down with the wine. "I'll make better fish, next time."  
  
"The fish is good!" Reid protested.  
  
"The fish isn't bad, but it's not as good as it usually is." Chaz shook his head. "The Courtesy is the laws the Judgements use among themselves. Those aren't dictated by any one of them, but by all of them. I know this because I was up to my ears in the story of Langley Hall for a while, and the early parts involve some Judgements doing questionable things. But, the Courtesy is intended to keep the Judgements from resorting to war over misunderstandings. To be 'discourteous', as the Halved has accused Clockwork of being, is to have violated the Courtesy in some way, and possibly to have marked oneself for extermination -- hence why my first thought was that Langly intended to murder a Judgement. But, for some reason, the Halved is being merciful, and I don't expect that to ever be explained to any of us, and is trying to repair Clockwork. I have some thoughts about that, but they're mostly nuts."  
  
"In your professional opinion, as an alienist."  
  
"See? You're catching on already."


	10. Chapter 10

Reid didn't make it to bed until hours later, his head spinning with the intensity of the tincture and the politics of the stars. He knew enough to safely say he knew nearly nothing, but he understood so much more than he had the day before. And somehow, knowing that things were just the same as they had always been, if on a different scale and with other names -- it was all political manoeuvring and the exploitation of psychology and contract law, same as it ever was -- helped him get to sleep.   
  
But, his sleep was anything but restful. In his dreams, he was with Lord Langly -- no 'e' -- and they were dancing in a magnificent ballroom. Other couples moved around them, smears of cream and grey in the periphery of his vision, but they had eyes only for each other. The dance seemed like it would make more sense if he were possessed of more legs than he had, but somehow he kept up, as if he'd known the dance for a long time. Almost as though he'd created the dance. He had. He knew that, now. And it meant something more than could be expressed in words that were safe to speak or write. He could feel the warmth in his chest, as those pale blue eyes met his own with a faint smile that meant _everything_. A question answered, even if he couldn't remember what he'd asked.  
  
But, this wasn't the face he loved, and he knew that.  
  
The scene changed suddenly, and now his legs burned with exertion, his skin soaked in sweat that dripped and ran down the pale shoulder beneath him onto the sheets. Someone panted wordlessly against his ear, skin pressed tight against his own. Hot and wet. Soft skin, sharp bone, and long limbs wrapped around him, every little desperate sound at once a demand and an enticement. He wanted this. He wanted this and he had it. It was everything he'd dreamed it would be, while he was lost, and now he was home again. Now he was here, and--  
  
He woke up soaked in sweat and the obvious product of the dream, and spent a long time sitting on the corner of the bed, trying to chase away the phantom ache in his chest, that loss he knew so well. But, it wasn't real, this time. It was just a dream brought on by ... whatever he'd bumped into earlier, when he'd first seen Lord Langly. That and the story of the first Lord Langley probably hadn't helped in the least. He knew how it felt to wait for something that would never happen, for someone who would never arrive. He knew the crushing weight of shattered hope letting reality pour in. But, this time, it didn't belong to him. And Lord Langley had found what he'd lost, in the end.  
  
That, he thought, was what he'd been dreaming. That return to something that could never again be perfect, but was somehow more valuable for it. He wished he could be so fortunate, and then he remembered the Drownies and was glad she hadn't returned. He wasn't sure he could handle that. Not that she'd have been quite so damp, but the damage done wasn't something he could unsee.  
  
It was just a nightmare. A nightmare that had left him with a re-broken heart, covered in sweat and ejaculate.  
  
He gave up and got up to take a shower.

* * *

The train was much as Reid had expected it would be -- rather like taking one to any number of major cities along the coast of a country he'd never again see. The difficulties arose at unexpected points. Purchasing a ticket was something that could only be done in echoes, and the conversion rate hadn't settled, yet, nor was there a place inside the station to convert money. He'd had to ask and be sent over the road to the other Moloch Street Station, where the devils were all to happy to accept his credit card on a machine that could withdraw money from it and convert the amount to echoes for a frankly hellish fee, but then, they were devils, and what did he expect, a joke they made and laughed at, when he commented on that fee. Still, he thanked them. It was his own inattentiveness that had put him in the situation to begin with. He was certain his own bank had better rates, at this point, since the Bazaar was demanding the change in currency be completed within a few months.  
  
Once he'd acquired a ticket, he was able to board the next train headed west, and the ticket agent warned that he might want to avoid sitting in the last car, as it was mostly filled with the Ealing Garden commuters, at this hour, and no one wanted to be stuck among the Rubberies and the artists. He thanked her, and somewhat perversely immediately found a seat among the Rubberies and the artists. It would only be one stop, according to the brochure, and it might give him an opportunity to become further acquainted with the people living, or at least working, in the neighbourhood Dr Villette had moved his maildrop to, if not himself.  
  
The car looked like something from an old film, rich wood and heavy curtains, and it smelled mostly of lemons and gin, he thought, and the artists were definitely the majority of the gin smell. A whiff of paint fumes clung to some of them, and they were mostly red-eyed and carrying on conversations in the kind of half-sentences that came out of repeated conversations on a subject, or conversations with other people who'd been there. Names and events and raised eyebrows; three words and a scoff. The Rubbery Men -- and they were all dressed in men's fashion, so perhaps there were no Rubbery Women on this train -- made burbling sounds he found familiar from his own neighbourhood. The tea shop and its bandaged patrons, whom he'd thought to be Tomb Colonists, after Dr Villette's descriptions, were likely adventurous Rubberies covering their faces for safety in the strange city. And he still didn't understand a word, but some of the artists seemed to know at least some words. Other things, he noticed, the Rubberies would write, if they were conversing with humans, which solved the problem of not being able to pronounce each others' languages nicely, as long as one could approximate the spelling.  
  
Still, he spent a large part of the trip looking out the window, once they had passed Ealing Gardens. Few passengers had moved into the once-busy car, after those headed for Ealing Gardens had gotten off the train. He sat on the side away from the river, so there was little to see beyond hills and moors, until they stopped in Jericho Locks, where it looked like the station sat a good distance outside the little black-gabled settlement. Canals seemed almost as common as streets, from what little he could see, and smaller rivers wound down through the hills to join what he was already coming to think of as the Stolen River, which spilled down out of higher hills to the west, through the seven shining, ornate locks that the village was named for. Here, a few people took seats in what had been the Rubbery car, but none of them sat near each other, and most of them didn't look to closely at one another He supposed that marked him as a tourist, if his clothes hadn't already.  
  
Something changed about the trees, as they continued up the river, and the greens and purples of the moor gave way to what seemed to be a dead forest. The scent of cedar drifted in through the vents in the roof of the car, and the few small farms looked ancient. But, the Magistracy was impossible to miss -- the most visible building looked like an enormous temple dedicated to an omniscient god. Stepped walls led up to a massive eye on the other side of the plaza from the train station, and after a quick question to a nearby constable, he knew that was where he was going. The last outpost of London's constabulary.  
  
Everything, the station included, looked small and shabby in comparison to the massive building that he was sure had stood long before London had ever been dreamed, the human-sized steps leading up to the doors having clearly been carved out well after the fact. The building was as massive inside as it was outside and surprisingly cold. Guards huddled around stoves by a huge set of doors that were not the ones he needed, and the ceiling stretched up like a cathedral built for giants, the long-faded art on it far out of the reach of his moderately nearsighted eyes. Still looking up, he bumped into a young woman in a massive fur coat and a tall hat, who directed him to the other side of the foyer, where a sign read 'Constabulary of the Evenlode'. He was sure he'd have been able to read it, once he'd gotten about ten feet closer. But, he was not dressed for this, at all.  
  
Reid introduced himself at the desk, and a young man in a long fur coat led him to a thankfully well-heated office in the back.  
  
"Superintendent, you have a visitor. He says Dr Villette sent him." The young constable blocked the slight opening of the massive door with his body, and Reid was fairly certain the man would be immovable.  
  
"Yes, Chaz said the Sixth City's constabulary would be in touch. Let the man in."  
  
As the constable blocking the door stepped aside, Reid could see the older woman sitting at her desk, halfway through peeling an orange, her heavy steel-grey hair braided and pinned up behind her head. He stepped into the office and nodded deeply, rolling his shoulders in to look just a little less large in comparison to the seated woman. "I'm sorry for your loss," he said, before anything else.  
  
"You have no idea what I've lost," she said quietly, picking at every fleck of white that clung to the orange. "I tell Chaz all the time not to stand like that. I've had Duke in my office. You are a perfectly appropriate size. Sit down and tell me what this is about."  
  
Reid took a seat in a worn, but soft, chair, producing a card from somewhere in his bag that he laid on a clear spot on the desk. "I'm Dr Spencer Reid, Special Agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation out of Washington, and I'm working on the Jack of Smiles investigation. Dr Villette suggested my team consult you about his credentials."  
  
"Chaz is exceptional at what he does, which is, if we're being honest about it, not talking to people. You've probably noticed that, if you're here checking up on him." The Superintendent's grey eyes finally lifted from the orange. "I have never had a complaint about his work, and my only complaint about his investigative style is that he never tells anyone where he's going. But, yes, I've been working with him since the eighties. The eighteen eighties, to be clear. I was not yet a Special Constable, myself, and worked as an independent detective, with a man named Stephen Reyes and a Clay Man called Duke. Reyes was quick to take Chaz onto our team, almost the instant he finished his doctorates, and I believe that he has been a valuable asset to the work we do, right from the start."  
  
"I've met... some of the team," Reid admitted, thinking that 'never telling anyone where he's going' was a complaint he'd heard often enough about himself. "Duke has been essential to our investigation, so far, so hearing you vouch for him as well puts me somewhat more at ease with regard to some of the, ah, stranger things he says."  
  
"When Duke says something about the case, believe him." The Superintendent loosened an orange slice from the whole and continued to strip away the last of the pith, before she set it aside and moved on to the next. "When Duke says something about his past, take it with several grains of salt and a strong brandy."  
  
"And when he talks about Polythreme?"  
  
"You've barely arrived in the Neath. Take him at his word. When he knows you better, he may start telling tales, but never anything that will be _dangerous_ for you to believe."  
  
"What can you tell me about Hafidha? I was somewhat surprised, when we met--"  
  
"Because cats from the Surface don't talk until they've been here for some time." The Superintendent offered half a smile. "I often prefer when Hafidha doesn't tell me how she came to know things, but she isn't wrong. She has a cat's uncanny instinct for where to uncover secrets, and if she hasn't already, have her over to make sure no one is stealing yours. Assuming she likes you enough to help. Cats are notoriously picky about who they're willing to help, and in that, she's no different."  
  
"I have been gifted with her security assessment, and the fact that she walked out of my bathroom mirror to provide it was more than enough incentive to take it seriously." Reid cleared his throat. "Is that just a method of travel I should accustom myself to, down here?"  
  
"Mirrors? Oh, no. That's Glasswork. You'll be on the railroad or a boat, if you want to go somewhere. Cats come by it inherently, and Chaz... well, Chaz has a natural talent. He was already doing the kind of Glasswork it takes decades to master, when he joined us, and he's only gotten better at it. But, you, like me, will be doing most of your travelling the safe way, I expect." Finally, she put a single slice of orange in her mouth and chewed it contemplatively, swallowing before she asked, "How was the journey up the river? Any difficulties with the train? Any highwaymen?"  
  
"Nothing wrong with the train. Aside from the change in scenery, it was much like any other railroad journey I have gone on. And the seats were a great deal more comfortable." Reid watched the Superintendent eat another slice of orange. "I assume you're joking about highwaymen. I've just come down from the Surface, and this is some test of my credibility?"  
  
"Not at all. Train robberies are incredibly profitable, and much of what's stolen can be sold on to the devils, or sometimes smuggled to the Surface at Balmoral." The Superintendent studied Reid for signs of disbelief. "There is enough money to be made on the black market that the Upper River, particularly beyond the outer reach of the Constabulary, which is where you sit, becomes quite dangerous, at times. Past the Magistracy, order is down to the local constabularies, if any exist, and the railway guards. Do take care if you find yourself further up the river. I'd hate to see what Washington would say if I lost one of their constables."

The conversation continued in that vein for quite some time, with Reid asking questions about criminal concerns his team had likely inherited, and Superintendent Falkner explaining the local dangers and criminal enterprises, and some of the peculiarly Neathy crimes that it would be best to contact her or Dr Villette about. There were, he noticed, certain points she turned the conversation away from, time and again, like why Reyes, who had apparently been very good at the kind of work their team specialised in, was no longer with them. Like Hotch, Reid thought, the man had probably needed to disappear. Still, as he headed back to the train, in the somewhat inevitable and nearly unchanging Neathy gloom, he thought he'd come away with a great deal more information about what he'd fallen into from a far more credible source than a man in a coffee shop, with a sentient statue and a talking cat, however much the latter two did lend credibility to some things, merely by existing.

He would stop on the way home, he thought, and pick up some more food. There had to be a few shops between the train station and his apartment, and maybe one of them would still have some less-Neathy options. Of course, everyone was probably looking for those, and as time went on, they'd be harder and harder to find. Maybe just a couple boxes of those Murgatroyd's crackers, then, and some more of the tortellini he liked.


	11. Chapter 11

By the time he got home, Reid was tired, and he couldn't figure out why. The most effort he'd put into anything was climbing the stairs to the Constabulary offices. Of course, he'd stopped on the way home to pick up food -- whatever surface food he could still get that didn't sound terrible. The food down here wasn't bad, but he just needed something familiar. At least home was still familiar. Mostly.  
  
The first thing he noticed, upon opening the door, was that there were two men in his living room, and he didn't know either of them. One sat at his desk, and the other was examining the bookcase by the window. He let the door swing the rest of the way open and stayed in the hall. "Who are you, and what are you doing in my apartment?"  
  
"We're all questions, tonight," said the man with the thinning grey hair and wireframe glasses, as he looked up from a drawer Reid knew he'd left locked. "Where did you come from, and what did you do to Langly?"  
  
"Excuse me? I've said less than a dozen words to him, through a mirror." Reid didn't make a move toward the door. His apartment was small, and he didn't think he'd fare well outnumbered in a small space. "...Which mirror did I forget to cover?"  
  
"We came in through the window," the soft-spoken shadow of a taller man said, still standing in front of that window.  
  
"Like civilised members of the species," said the man at the desk. "But, really, what did you do to him? We'll tear this place apart until we find your notes, if we have to."  
  
The entire sequence of events was surreal. Reid blinked a few times, confused, before he pulled out his badge with the hand not holding three bags of groceries, the one still burned and bandaged. "I'm a federal agent. I realise those words don't mean much to you, but they do mean that I'm in law enforcement, and you've just broken into my apartment, which was perhaps not among the better choices you've made, today. I will assure you one more time, that I have barely even spoken to Lord Langly, and I have no idea what you're talking about. Now, I'm going to call my team and let them know what's happening, and you two should go sit at the table, so we can discuss this like the civilised members of the species that you claim to be." He paused. "Just because I should probably ask, you are human, aren't you?"  
  
"You're asking because his eyes are funny, aren't you?" the man at the desk asked, obviously debating whether to get up as he'd been asked. "He's just as human as any other. He's just Bright-Eyed from getting a little too close to that difference machine that thinks it's a Judgement down in the Gap."  
  
The taller man, still shorter than Reid, but not by much, stepped away from the backlighting of the windows at the far end of the room and came into focus as he went to sit at the table. He was largely nondescript, average height, brown hair in a common style, close-cropped brown beard. "We should explain what's happened."  
  
"You should," Reid agreed, slipping his badge back into his pocket and swapping it for his phone. "But, you should give me just a minute, first." He raised the phone to his ear, wondering not for the first time, why it actually worked down here. There was no sky. There were no satellites. "Garcia? Hey, it's me. I just got back from upriver, and I really don't have time to talk about it, because two men have broken into my apartment, and they're kindly waiting for me to tell you that, before we discuss why they think I'm responsible for something happening to their... friend?"  
  
"Friend," the man at the table agreed, nodding.  
  
"Yes, I agree. Yes. That's-- Can you do me a favour and-- yes. Exactly. I'll leave the door open."  
  
"He just called the constables on us." The man still at the desk looked at his friend and cocked his head at Reid.  
  
"Please join your friend at the table," Reid insisted, as politely as he could make himself be. "The last time -- and the first time -- I saw Lord Langly was last night. I was having dinner with Dr Villette, when he called. But, that was all. He called. He wasn't here. I was never in physical proximity to him, so I'm not sure why I would have anything to do with anything happening to him. What... did happen?"  
  
"First he broke out in a rash," the man at the desk said, as he got up from the desk, demonstrating how short he really was as he crossed to the table. "We weren't too worried about it, but he's not allergic to anything. Figured maybe he'd gotten a burn or forgot to put gloves on before he started screwing with his latest project."  
  
"He had a red mark on the back of his hand, when I saw him," Reid said, setting down the groceries so they'd hold the door open, and then leaning against the door beside them. He had no intention of getting any closer to the two men.  
  
"After a few hours, he had them all over his body," the taller man went on. "It looks like something's trying to burn its way out of his skin -- blistering, peeling. It's been getting worse all night and day. And he said he'd met you, Dr Reid, and that you'd done something to his mind."  
  
"I didn't, though I may have been a catalyst. We didn't discuss what happened. The first time I saw his face, I had... a hallucination, I suppose. It was like having someone else's flashbacks. People I didn't know and places I'd never been. When I came to my senses, a few seconds later, he got upset and accused me of being a 'Fingerking'." Reid shrugged. "I had some strange dreams, but I've also recently had a fairly serious head injury, so I didn't think anything of it."  
  
"So, he just saw you and freaked out?" the shorter man asked, studying the side of the room around the table. "He snap at you or at Villette?"  
  
"Dr Villette. He never said a single word to me. About me, but not to me." Reid watched the men carefully. "Why?"  
  
"Because he's terrified of you," the taller man admitted. "He said you gave him nightmares that were eating their way out of him."  
  
Reid looked sick, but not as sick as he felt. It was probably for the best that he hadn't eaten all day. "Have you spoken to Dr Villette? Because when I told him what I'd seen, he had a theory. I don't know whether it accounts for the symptoms besides the nightmares, but... What do you know about the first Lord Langley?"  
  
"He spent twenty years waiting for his boyfriend to come home, and when the guy finally did, he was someone else," the shorter man said. "That's the part everybody knows. And he built Langley Hall because the Halved demanded it, and either he or the Halved covered his body in Correspondence that was meant to draw in the lost. The Hall was supposed to be where you'd find yourself and people you didn't even know were missing. And the first Lord Langly threw some great parties. I only knew the guy in passing, because I met him at one. All you had to do was show up at the door. Some of those parties are still going on. We've been living there since, what do you say, Byers, nineteen-forty-something?"  
  
"Probably. What does this have to do with the current Lord Langly?"  
  
"Dr Villette said something about powerful, recurring dreams and desires changing the landscape of Parabola. He suggested that whatever mirror Lord Langly had chosen to use that night somehow intersected the dreams of his predecessor, and that it only happened when he looked at me because Dr Villette is skilled in filtering the noise out of the signal when working with Parabolan matters." Reid shook his head and shrugged. "Like I said, the only side-effect I've had is nightmares, so I was willing to accept that explanation, but I have no idea as to whether it's possible. I haven't even been in the Neath for two months." He paused as the other thing the shorter man said sank in. "Byers? As in Cosgrove and?"  
  
The taller man cleared his throat. "John Byers, retired Admiralty. I was in Communications, on the Dawn Machine project." He gestured at his eyes. "Obviously. So, yes, that Byers. I'd prefer you not mention having seen me in London. You've only been here two months and you've heard of Cosgrove?"  
  
"Of course he's heard of Cosgrove. He's polishing his hammer on Villette," the shorter man said.  
  
"You're not in London," Reid pointed out. "And I'm not sleeping with Dr Villette, no matter what Lord Langly thinks. I have no idea how he came to that conclusion."  
  
"Villette's got a taste for Surfacers. It was the obvious conclusion." The shorter man shook his head. "Powers only know what they see in him. I wouldn't steal that face if I were a Snuffer and he were the last human in the Neath."  
  
Byers cleared his throat, again. "Anyway, Langly's very sick, and he blames you. He's _sure_ you can help him, Dr Reid."  
  
"Contact him. Do you need a mirror, or...?" One of Reid's eyebrows crept up.  
  
"We can't. I can do a little glasswork, but I can't call back into that place and pick where I end up. Out, sure, but not back in to a room _he's_ in. Langly's got the frames worked with enough Correspondence to set a lesser man on fire. And if he's still where we left him, there's no mirrors in there." The shorter man, still unintroduced, shook his head again.  
  
"Then how did you expect to get back?"  
  
Byers looked like he knew he was explaining a terrible idea, tipping his head to one side and then the other, not looking at Reid. "We came to talk to you, but when you weren't here, we let ourselves in to see if you'd written anything down or left anything we could use to figure out what you'd done. The idea was that when we were done, we'd go discuss it with Dr Villette, who _can_ get past most of the wards. Which is alarming, to be honest, and we're not sure why he can. If you couldn't help us, we thought maybe he'd know enough to think of something."  
  
"Take me with you," Reid decided, suddenly, well aware he was making a worse decision than Byers had, breaking in here. "We'll go see Dr Villette together, because whatever is affecting Lord Langly is also affecting me. I'm not sure how I could be responsible for it, but something happened to us both, last night, and Dr Villette is the only witness to it. All of us together may be able to come up with a solution."  
  
"He's got a point, Frohike," Byers said, at the sound of footsteps on the stairs.  
  
"I hope you've got a big enough mirror," Frohike replied, with a long look at Reid.  
  
"Dr Villette fits through the bathroom mirror easily," Reid pointed out, as the footsteps resolved into two women at the top of the stairs.  
  
"Villette's here?" JJ asked, sure she'd misheard.  
  
"No, but we're going to see him. It seems my unexpected guests are friends of a friend of his, and they're here to ask for my help. I'd like you to come with me, of course, because I'm trying to avoid any more tactically questionable decisions, this week." Reid gestured with his burned hand at his black eye, which was more greenish yellow than anything, at this point. The tincture was as good as Dr Villette had claimed, which was a good thing, because he preferred not to spend another month trying not to have his annoyance turn into another nosebleed, if that month was going to go anything like the last few days.  
  
"They broke into your apartment to get your help? What's wrong with, I don't know, _calling_ , like normal people?" JJ stepped past Reid, into the apartment, but Lewis hung back.  
  
"Presumably, they're Londoners," Lewis offered. "If they had a telephone grid, I'm not sure it survived."  
  
"We had to wait, when we got here," Byers explained, "and we would've attracted too much attention standing in the hall for hours, so we waited inside."  
  
"And rifled my desk," Reid reminded him.  
  
"We weren't sure you were coming back. We're here because of what you-- whatever happened between you and Langly."  
  
"And now we're leaving." Frohike stood up and gestured toward where he already knew the bathroom to be. "Ladies?"  
  
"There's not a way out over there." JJ blinked and eyed Frohike quizzically. "Lewis is standing in the only exit."  
  
Reid sighed and rubbed his face, the faint ache returning as he pressed his hand against the fading bruises. "Yes, there is. Or, rather, there is _now."_  
  
"Is that how they got in?" Lewis asked, uncertain if Reid meant they'd cut through the wall.  
  
"We came in," Byers protested, "through the window."  
  
"Which demonstrates that now that we're in the Neath, I need better window latches." Reid gestured for JJ and Lewis to follow Frohike, though JJ gave him an extremely curious look. He shrugged and moved his groceries out of the way of the door, so he could close it. "You're going to think I've lost my mind, but we are in the Neath, and things work a little differently here. And the bathroom mirror is the largest reflective surface I have."  
  
"Reflective surface?" Lewis looked twice as curious.  
  
"Ooh, the blue stuff." Frohike picked the bottle up from the bathroom counter and then put it back down. "For whatever you did to your face, I'm guessing."  
  
"The Fall happened to my face," Reid clarified levelling a somewhat impatient look at Frohike, who pushed back the curtain over the mirror.  
  
"Thirsty bombazine." Frohike looked impressed as he ran his fingers over the fabric. "Somebody's taking good care of you."  
  
"Dr Villette chose the curtains. And the, ah... decorations."  
  
"The charms aren't decorative," Byers corrected, taking a pair of dark glasses in muddy orange out of his pocket and putting them on. "They keep the snakes out."  
  
"Okay, now we have transcended to a new level of crazy. Reid, we're standing in your bathroom with two men who are talking about keeping the snakes out by hanging little green flowers on your mirror." JJ looked like she might chase them all out of the room and make an arrest.  
  
"Please, JJ, I'll explain everything in less than five minutes. We just have to get where we're going." Reid spared her the soothing gestures and leaned on the bathroom doorframe, watching Frohike, now wearing similar glasses and sucking on a lozenge, prod at the mirror.  
  
"Oh, come on, Villette," Frohike muttered, and after a few moments, the mirror started to glow the same green that it had when Langly had called in.  
  
"What--?" JJ stared at the mirror, stunned. "You weren't here, Reid. They set this up while you were out."  
  
"They didn't set _that_ up," Lewis protested, as Frohike stuck his arm through the glowing glass, reaching for something.  
  
There was a shift in the shade of green, a brightening, a new depth, and Frohike stared into it. "Don't you ever answer the damn glass, Villette?"  
  
"Kind of busy, Frohike!" Chaz's voice came through the mirror, but that was all.  
  
"Then put on a dressing gown. It's serious," Frohike insisted.  
  
A split second later, the glass cleared, and Chaz stood alone in a small, dim room, somewhere that Reid didn't recognise, one hand covered in flour and a smear of ink across his forehead, as if he'd brushed his hair back, not realising his hand was wet. "What kind of serious? Byers. Good to see you. Spencer... Oh, no."  
  
"What do you know?" Frohike demanded.  
  
"Only that I promised Dr Reid I'd explain some things, before he met you."  
  
"But, he met Langly last night, and now Langly's ... I don't know, dying or something. We're pretty sure it's not animescence, and we're pretty sure Dr Reid had something to do with it."  
  
"What the hell is going on?" JJ asked, stepping into the mirror's view.  
  
"I don't know," Chaz admitted. "But, Lord Langly is an old friend, and if what happened to him isn't a result of his experiments--"  
  
"It's not," Byers told him. "I've been there every step of the way, and I'm fine."  
  
"You're also Bright-Eyed, Byers. Maybe the Law protected you." Chaz pushed his hair back with his flour-covered hand. "Okay, okay. I'm not home. I'm in the middle of teaching a baking class at Helicon House. Can you meet me here?" He looked over Frohike's shoulder, with an apologetic smile. "Good evening, Dr Lewis. A shame about the circumstances."  
  
"A pleasure to see you again, Dr Villette." Lewis nodded, hiding her uncertainty about what was happening in this small bathroom with too many people in it.  
  
"How's the salon looking?" Frohike asked. "Am I going to step into Fingerwork, up there?"  
  
Chaz shook his head. " _I'm_ here. Cats only, and I think they're all in the kitchen, which I really need to get back to. Meet you in fifteen or twenty minutes?"  
  
"For which one of us?" Frohike looked unimpressed.  
  
"Both of us. I'm doing bread, not Treacheries. I really have to go. I'll see you upstairs."  
  
The mirror greened again, but before it could fade to cloudy almost-space, Frohike leaned in and grabbed something else, pulling it until a much larger room opened behind the mirror. He climbed up onto the sink and folded himself through the mirror, plainly appearing in the room beyond.  
  
"Ladies first," he said as he leaned back through, holding out his hand.  
  
Byers produced a roll of lozenges from the same pocket the glasses had come out of and offered them to the agents in the room.


	12. Chapter 12

By the time Chaz had a grip on what was happening to Langly, JJ had finally stopped retching. Neither she nor Lewis had taken the honey, at Reid's advice, but she was the only one to suffer for it. Byers's glasses just didn't help _enough_.  
  
Reid stayed by her side, until she was well enough to take in the room, its walls reflecting them back to themselves from a seemingly infinite number of angles. Lewis was already investigating the decor, while Byers and Frohike explained what they'd already told Reid.  
  
"And you're not symptomatic?" Chaz looked over at Reid.  
  
"I don't have a rash and blisters, but I did have some... unusual nightmares. I may be less affected for some reason, or I may just be having nightmares because that's a relatively normal thing for me to do, and nothing to do with the present difficulties."  
  
"Nightmares, though. This is all about nightmares. Whatever happened to the two of you gave you both nightmares, waking and sleeping. It happened through a mirror, which suggests either one of us was lax about security--" Chaz held up a hand as Frohike's mouth opened. "--or the connection passed through something it shouldn't have, and I'm really leaning on the idea that it's connected to the dreams of the first Lord Langley, given the content. But, just in case, do we know who the Hall goes to, if Langly should become ... unable to continue in his position?"  
  
"You think somebody's trying to kill him for the hall?" Byers asked, suddenly curious.  
  
"I don't know what to think, but it's the most obvious reason, assuming this is intentional, and I'm not convinced it is, _but_..."  
  
Frohike shook his head. "We don't know. I think he's the last of the Langleys -- that whole thing about his branch being the branch that didn't even spell it the same way, and he's their only kid. But, then, we thought the first lord was the last Langley. He had no idea he had any relatives left, and when he... we still don't know what happened to him, but there's no question Langly inherited. There's a Judgement out there that thinks he's the Lord of Langley Hall, and that's enough for anyone."  
  
"I wonder if he's _real_ ," Chaz muttered under his breath.  
  
"Of course he's real," Byers snapped, "and you of all people--"  
  
"As opposed to Parabolan." Chaz's eyes met Byers's through the cosmogone tint that kept people from realising just what was wrong with Byers's eyes. "None of this solves the problem. I have to see him."  
  
"That's why we're here," Frohike reminded him. "You and the Surfacer were there when it started, and you've got enough brain in your head to think of something we haven't. Probably."  
  
Chaz nodded, crossing the room to where JJ sat, quietly talking with Reid. Behind him, he could hear Dr Lewis talking to Byers. "Agent Jareau, my deepest apologies. It's not an easy journey through a mirror that's come from the Surface, but it shouldn't be that hard. If you'd prefer to take the train back to Washington, I can arrange for that. But, the rest of us need to make two more stops, and that journey ends somewhere you can't get a train back from, any more, so if you come with us, you'll have to return the same way. If you're worried about Dr Reid, Dr Lewis will be coming with us, so he won't be left alone with ... ruffians, in the High Wilderness."  
  
"Who in Hell are you calling a ruffian, Villette?" Frohike called across the room.  
  
"Nobody in Hell, multiple people in this room."  
  
JJ looked like she was seriously considering staying behind, but she shook her head. "If he's going, I'm going with him. We need to tell Garcia what's happening."  
  
"Your phone probably still works, _here_ ," Reid told her, "but I don't know about where we're going."  
  
"I have to ask," Lewis called over. "Have either of you figured out why our phones still work?"  
  
"Gas lines still worked when London fell," Frohike said, shrugging. "Not that I was there, but as long as your whole system falls, there's no reason it wouldn't keep up. You guys have telephones? They any good? We could never get them working up the Wilderness. Not enough that anybody really wanted to pay for one. The colonies are small enough you can just walk over there or send an urchin, mostly, and if you're sending word to another colony, you can't run line that far anyway. It'd be like trying to run it across the Zee."  
  
"We do have wired phones, but we also have wireless phones that depend on towers and satellites to deliver the signal," Reid explained, only slightly clear on how it all worked, himself. "But, even if we still have some of the towers, we don't still have the satellites."  
  
"Satellites?" Chaz prompted.  
  
"They're machines in the sky that catch the signal from the ground and reflect it back," Lewis explained.  
  
Byers shrugged uncomfortably. "Moon-misers, maybe. The glim is pretty reflective. I wonder if that means you'll be able to send messages across the Unterzee without waiting for ships..."  
  
"Moon... what?" JJ looked like she was entirely out of her depth again.  
  
"Moon-misers. They're cave-crabs with reflective shells, and they live on the ceiling of the Neath. From the ground, they look like stars." Reid shrugged, as all the eyes in the room lit upon him. "I read Cosgrove. He mentions the role of crab-constellations and glimfall in the applications of the Treacheries at sea."  
  
"We need to get to Langly," Chaz reminded them. "Call your friend and let them know I'll send Hafidha in case they need to contact us."  
  
Reid nodded and took out the phone that shouldn't have worked, placing the call. "We're all safe," he promised, before anything else. "But, there's some, ah... I've been caught up in a diplomatic incident with Albion--"  
  
"Eleutheria, not Albion," Frohike said, firmly.  
  
"With Eleutheria," Reid corrected himself. "And I need to go to a place called Langley Hall, to help sort some things out. Yes, I'm bringing Tara and JJ. We'll be fine. Dr Villette is with us. But, we're going to be out of range, so you're going to need to use alternate means to contact us, while we're away. Dr Villette is arranging to send a member of his team to the office, to help you. I think you'll like her."  
  
"Spencer, I worry about you sometimes, and this is one of those times and--"  
  
"Garcia, I need you to trust me."  
  
Chaz tapped him on the shoulder and gestured at the mirror he was working with.  
  
"I need you to go meet Dr Villette's co-worker, ah..." Reid cleared his throat. "... in the bathroom down the hall. Because that's where she is, and she doesn't weigh enough to open the door. I'll stay on the line until you're with her."  
  
"What is she, a midget?" Garcia asked, and the background noise suggested she was leaving her office.  
  
"Ah, she's... You'll understand when you see her." Reid sucked on his lips, not wanting to say too much, lest Garcia think he'd finally lost it, but not sure that letting her walk into that unprepared was at all wise.  
  
"There's nobody here. There's-- Oh! Hello, kitty! Aren't you precious! How did you get in here?"  
  
Reid cleared his throat again. "That's Hafidha. That's who you're looking for."  
  
"Reid, that's a cat."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Chaz rolled his eyes. "Introduce yourself, Hafs," he said loudly.  
  
On the other end of the phone, Garcia squawked. "Oh, my gosh. Was that Dr Villette? That-- Yes. Yes, I am. And ... you're a cat. ... I think we've got everything under control, here, Spence. Miss Hafidha and I are going back to my office."  
  
"Do you have a mirror in there? You're going to need one. And take it _out_ when you leave."  
  
"Oh, honey, I always have a mirror."  
  
Reid winced, reminding himself to have that conversation with her, later, if Hafidha didn't beat him to it. "We'll be in touch, as soon as we know anything."  
  
"We need to do this quickly," Chaz told them, as Reid put the phone away. "Agent Jareau, are you sure you want to join us? If so, you'll be travelling with me, this time, and this mirror shouldn't be... well, except that we're going into Langley Hall. Okay, I'm going to go first and see if I can't pick a more friendly mirror. I'd like this to be as easy as possible for all of us."  
  
Frohike shook his head. "Nah, you open it and I'll go first. It'll take me less time to bring back something cleaner. You know how he is about mirrors in the bedroom."  
  
"Oh, is that where he is?" Chaz groaned. "Okay, I'll open it, you go first and call back from somewhere easier to bring guests through."  
  
"I'll admit," Lewis said to Reid, "I'm still fascinated by the idea of just... walking through a mirror."  
  
"It's not as easy as it looks." Reid tipped his head at JJ. "But, if you like, I'll try to explain it, and then Dr Villette can explain why I'm wrong."

* * *

The second trip went much better for JJ, who said it wasn't much worse than trying to get into the car in the snow. In fact, no one came through headachy or retching, this time, and Chaz looked relieved and exhausted by the effort.  
  
Byers led them through the strangely disjointed halls, up stairs and down stairs, until they came to a door with a heavy pewter-looking frame, decorated with images of bats and landmarks on one side and of unrecognisable creatures and kingly figures on the other, with a gate flanked by statues at the centre of the lintel. "This has always been the suite of the Lord of the Hall," he explained, opening the door.  
  
"Langly? We're back."  
  
There was no reply.  
  
Chaz followed Byers into the room, spotting the bowls of water and bloody bandages on every surface in the parlour, as he passed through on the way to the bedroom, where he found Langly asleep in bed. A little too asleep, perhaps. "He's still breathing," he assured Byers, as he drew the blankets down just far enough to see a blister forming on Langly's shoulder and below it, a shape he almost recognised, scabbed and burned into the skin. "Byers? Come here a minute. Is this what i think it is?"  
  
Reid followed Byers in, noticing the complete lack of reflective surfaces in the bedroom. There was some light from a pair of lamps, but the room seemed to swallow nearly all of it, except where it fell on furniture or people. He stayed back, close enough to hear, but not close enough to watch the examination. If he was meant to see, he'd be invited. He glanced back into the parlour where Lewis was examining the paintings and JJ was trying to make sense of a bottle she'd found among the bandages.  
  
"Fancy," Byers said, looking at the mark. "No, complicated and delicate? Frilly? I know this one."  
  
"It's 'an elaborate but fragile artifice'," Chaz translated. "I know that one better than I should. Are any of the others like this?"  
  
"They weren't when we left. Check his hand, that's the oldest, right?" Byers folded the blanket down again, revealing that most of Langly's chest was wrapped in bandages, yellow and red spots marking where the blisters had been opened. He tugged at Langly's arm, still half expecting the man to wake up and snap at him, but he slept deeply through all of it. "That's a name."  
  
"No, it isn't," Chaz took a closer look. "I'm not writing the name here, for obvious reasons, but it's related to the name. It's... definitely a binary system of some sort. Two souls, maybe? There's a variant that's two futures, and this isn't it, but it still has the mark for an implication of time. I think that's 'circling forever'. It's not 'two stars orbiting each other' -- that's the name. I'd half expect to see the name, given where we are, but..." He looked up at Byers. "How many of these does he have?"  
  
"More than seven."  
  
"I honestly don't understand why he's not on fire."  
  
Reid shifted just enough to see the symbol, between the two men debating it. It was on a hand. It wouldn't be like he was looking somewhere he shouldn't be. But, as his eyes found the symbol, Langly's eyes flew open.  
  
"You," Langly said the word clearly, and Reid couldn't stop himself from looking at the man's face.  
  
Byers heard Reid fall, and in the instant he looked away, Langly slid back into unconsciousness. He sighed. "And now they're both out."  
  
But, Reid wasn't dreaming nearly as peacefully. His back arched hard enough to drag the top of his head across the bronzewood floor, and his arms trailed limply from his shoulders. One leg tensed while the other lay still, and his breathing caught in his too-tight chest.  
  
Chaz threw himself into the parlour, holding on to the bedroom doorframe with one hand. "Does he have seizures?"  
  
"Not except that one time..." JJ shoved past Chaz and knelt next to Reid, trying to pull him onto his side. "What the hell did you do?"  
  
"We didn't," Byers said, quietly. "Langly woke up, said one word, and they both collapsed."  
  
Reid managed a few strangled sounds, one arm stretching over his head as if it were trying to escape his shoulder. But, he remained unconscious.  
  
"We should get him out of the room. I can't tell if this is the head injury, contact with Langly, or a combination of the two." Chaz crouched by Reid's legs. "Help me lift him. There's a couch more than large enough in the parlour, and we can hold his head up with a pillow, so he doesn't break his neck."  
  
"I really don't think we should move him, until he wakes up," JJ protested.  
  
"I don't think he's going to wake up unless we move him."  
  
Byers looked around himself and came to a conclusion. "I'm getting Frohike to hold a mirror for us. We're going in after them, Dr Villette. I know you can do it."  
  
"Going...? _...Where_?" JJ looked between the two men, baffled, catching just a glimpse of the bandaged man in the bed behind Byers.  
  
"Parabola." Chaz sighed. "He wants me to go to Parabola, find their dreams, and bring them back. I really think we should just move Dr Reid into another room. Seeing each other is causing this. This is almost exactly what happened, last night, except they were both sitting down, and there was definitely no sign of a seizure."  
  
Reid's entire body relaxed, suddenly, head falling to the side, unbandaged hand hitting the floor with a sound like a dropped raw chicken. The only sound from him was gasping and panting as his chest finally expanded when he breathed. Sweat poured down his face, and JJ wiped it away.  
  
"Spence? You with me?"  
  
There was no response.  
  
Seconds later, Langly choked on air, thrashing at the bedclothes, still asleep. The blister on his shoulder burst and the liquid in it boiled as it poured down his skin, leaving scald marks that stretched out from a splitting seared mark. There was too much redness, too much recently-burned skin to determine the shape of the new lines, as they continued to crack and peel. The smell of burned flesh wasn't overpowering, but it was definitely recognisable.  
  
"I don't think that's a seizure," Byers ventured, as he watched Langly grapple with the sheets. "I think they're passing something back and forth. _Please_ take Dr Reid out of the room."  
  
This time, JJ grabbed him under the shoulders, nodding to Chaz. "We'll see if this works."  
  
Chaz wrapped an arm around Reid's hips, and helped JJ carry him toward the parlour. But, as they approached the door, Langly suddenly sat up, or more accurately, curled forward, howling. Reid woke up and lunged toward the bed with a panicked shout, twisting out of JJ's grip, only for Chaz to catch him before he could smack his face on the floor.  
  
"Cover his eyes!" Byers insisted, pulling a sheet in front of Langly. "They can't see each other, or it'll happen again!"  
  
Reid seemed to only be half-awake, still in the grips of some nightmare, never quite finishing a sentence as he struggled to get away from where his head was held against Chaz's shoulder. "No, please-- I have to-- Just let me-- I need-- _Please! Where is he?_ "  
  
"Spencer, it's just a dream," Chaz assured him. "You're in Langley Hall, and you've had a nightmare. But, right now, we need to keep your eyes covered, so it doesn't happen again. Just hold on to me. I'm real. Agent Jareau is behind you."  
  
"Spence? You okay?" JJ asked, making no move to touch him.  
  
"I saw him! Where is he?" Langly demanded, from the bed, grabbing at the sheet Byers held. The new burn on his shoulder split and bled, the lines becoming clearer as the skin peeled away. "I was with him! He was right here!"  
  
"Langly, calm down. You just blacked out and scared the life out of me."  
  
"Bring him to me! I have to see him!" Langly snapped, trying to drag the sheet out of Byers's hands.  
  
"If you mean Dr Villette, he's here, but he's a little occupied. If you mean Dr Reid, you absolutely cannot look at Dr Reid." Byers twisted the sheet out of Langly's hands, still holding it high enough to keep him from seeing across the room.  
  
"Byers? The first Lord Langley was covered in Correspondence," Chaz said, during a brief lull in the yelling from that side of the room. "Look again at the sigils."  
  
"The first, the original, kept his covered. I don't know what they were," Byers protested, as Langly's head tipped dizzily.  
  
"A binary system and an elaborate but fragile artifice are what I could see," Chaz reminded him. "What does that sound like?"  
  
"Don't be ridiculous."  
  
Reid tried again to extract himself from Chaz's arms. "Please, I have to be there."  
  
Langly swung his legs over the edge of the bed, and Byers dropped the sheet over his head and grabbed him to keep him from getting up. "Let me see him!"  
  
"They can't see each other, right?" Lewis asked from the doorway, watching the bizarre scene unfold. "So, what if you blindfold them and let them sit together?"  
  
"At best, maybe they'll calm down," Byers ventured.  
  
"At worst, they both go out again." Chaz sighed and glanced around. "Do you have anything we can use?"


	13. Chapter 13

Handkerchiefs and socks were too short, but eventually, Lewis and Frohike turned up a few scarves. Byers kept holding the sheet until Frohike had gotten a scarf tied around the top of Langly's face. JJ tied Reid's in place, with a few soothing words.  
  
"It's going to be okay, Spence. You can't look at him," JJ said, helping him up and leading him toward Langly's bed, "but, we're going to bring you to him. Stay calm, and whatever you do, don't take off the blindfold."  
  
Langly continued to complain loudly, Byers holding the scarf on him, until he felt the side of the bed dip next to him, at which he twisted onto his side, still half propped up with pillows, and stretched his Correspondence-marked hand toward Reid. JJ winced at the thought of Reid reacting to an unknown hand, but as Langly's fingers met the side of his face, he relaxed almost instantly, leaning into the touch. Reid lifted his own hand, reaching out until he found the sweat-soaked, blood-crusted ends of Langly's hair, which he coiled around two of his fingers, stroking the strands with his thumb, as if they were something precious.  
  
When Langly leaned in and Reid met him in the middle, no one dared interrupt the kiss, however ill-advised it seemed. JJ shot a horrified look at Lewis, who shook her head and shrugged, looking incredibly surprised. Frohike opened his mouth to say something, but Chaz held up a hand to stop him. Byers wouldn't look at the two men on the bed, at all, looking terribly embarrassed at the display. The kiss broke slowly, but the instant their lips were no longer touching, Reid and Langly jerked away from each other, Langly swiping at his lips with the back of his wrist and Reid pressing a hand to his mouth as if he expected to find his lips bleeding.  
  
"Byers, what in Hell?" Langly demanded, grabbing at the scarf tied around his head.  
  
"No!" Chaz yelped, lunging across Frohike and Byers to hold the scarf on Langly's face. "Don't take it off. Dr Reid's here. Every time the two of you look at each other, it... I don't know, sets something off. You're having dreams about being your uncle, I think, and the problem is that _he's having them too_."  
  
"Would it be too much to ask for a glass of gin?" Reid asked, quietly, scrubbing at his lips with his cuff.  
  
"Because you need to be drunk, or because you're trying to sterilise your face?" Frohike asked, blinking in amused confusion.  
  
"Both," JJ answered for him. "This is the opposite of normal behaviour, for him."  
  
"Let me apologise," Reid said, barely above a whisper. "I'm not entirely certain what happened, but I think I kissed someone."  
  
"I have no idea what happened, but I'm pretty sure I kissed somebody, and I'm a lot more okay with that being you and not Byers." Langly patted at his chest delicately. "If you're getting him gin, can I get some laudanum? Because this is completely horrible, and at no point in any of this did I ask for the Parabolan clap."  
  
Chaz choked on a laugh. "I guess that's one way to look at it."  
  
"I may have something that may be more useful than laudanum, under the circumstances," Reid ventured. "Or, at least it should lessen the pain without the same, ah... side effects. I'm carrying five percent lidocaine cream and an assortment of burn creams and other potentially useful items. I had... a minor kitchen accident, the other day."  
  
"Five percent lidocaine says that wasn't a minor anything," Lewis observed, stepping around the corner of the bed to get a closer look at Reid's bandaged hand.  
  
"It was a very small, very stupid accident, and thank you, Dr Villette; the tincture has helped quite a bit." Reid stuck his hand under his other arm and winced. Whatever he'd put on it before he got on the train that morning had long since worn off.  
  
"I can tell. Your face looks better." Chaz stepped back, passing between Byers and Frohike as he followed Lewis to the other side of the bed. "Do you mind if I open your bag? We need to keep the blindfold on you, so if you're carrying medicine, someone else is going to have to get it."  
  
Reid pulled his satchel into his lap and opened it, blind, holding open the correct compartment. "There should be several tubes and tins in there. Some of them are antibiotic ointments. I saw the stains on the bandages, and I don't think they'd go amiss, unless he's allergic to them."  
  
Chaz examined the tubes and tins. "I don't think I've heard of any of these things, but I'm an alienist, not a physician. Dr Lewis?"  
  
"I'm a psychologist, as well, but these are mostly just over-the-counter, so there shouldn't be anything I can't identify..." Lewis picked through the pile at the foot of the bed, as Reid closed his bag.  
  
"Find the lidocaine first. It's not going to last that long -- only an hour or two -- but it should be enough time to clean the wounds and re-wrap them." Reid held his bandaged hand close to his chest, knuckles pressed tightly together.  
  
Lewis watched him. "Reid, maybe we should do something about your hand--"  
  
"My hand is nowhere near as serious as Lord Langly's burns," Reid snapped, absolutely unwilling to discuss what he'd done to himself or how bad it might actually be. "And as soon as we get home, I can buy more of most of what I'm carrying."  
  
"Your hand is that bad, and I know exactly what you did to it." Chaz picked up the tube of lidocaine cream and read the directions. "That said, I absolutely agree that Langly's burns are a great deal more serious." His eyes lifted from the tube and landed on Reid's half-covered face. "I know exactly what you did, and now I wonder if it's relevant."  
  
"What'd he do?" Langly asked, scratching at the bandages with his unburned hand. "And why would burning his hand in the kitchen have anything to do with me breaking out in blisters?"  
  
"The Correspondence. You've been ... unconscious, but those aren't just blisters. Like the Lord Langley before you, you're covered in Correspondence, and I suspect the sigils may be the same, but I don't know if we have any pictures of your predecessor's chest."  
  
"Okay, great, the Correspondence. What the hell does that have to do with him--" Langly stopped, his back straightening, before he turned on Reid. " _You idiot!_ "  
  
Reid raised his voice in annoyance, desperate to keep his team from learning what he'd done. "Can we please focus on the severity of the burns on the man _next to me_? I'm pretty sure my hand isn't actually that interesting or that relevant to whether or not he has an infection. Which he does, because I can smell it."  
  
Frohike stood at the foot of the bed. "Ladies, why don't we step into the parlour, while Byers and Villette take care of our host? I'll clean up a little and bring out the good Caducean Cream, and I'll explain anything your hearts desire."  
  
"A good seventy percent of what he tells you is probably true, too. The other thirty is believable speculation." Chaz offered the agents who could see him a wry smile. "We'll hold on to Dr Reid, if you don't mind. I don't want to separate them, just yet, but at the same time, I think Lord Langley might prefer fewer observers when we unwrap him."  
  
"And there's no mirrors in here?" JJ asked, looking around the room.  
  
"The only other doors go to the bathroom, which has no mirror except when Lord Langly brings one with him, and the cabinet, which also has no mirror. Lord Langly is extremely particular about the safety of his sleeping arrangements." Chaz reached into his own bag and drew out a dark velvet sack, offering it to JJ. "You may hold my mirror, until we're through, here. Open it only in the parlour, and only where Frohike can see it. And whatever you do, don't remove it from the bracket. You'll be safe from most things, as long as the bracket stays on it, but Hafidha should still be able to reach you."  
  
JJ accepted the bagged mirror and moved back toward the parlour. "Thank you. I appreciate this."  
  
Chaz winked as he drew the door behind the three now outside it. "Ask Frohike about what you can do with a mirror. I'm sure he'll be happy to show you some things."  
  
As soon as the door clicked shut, Byers began to unwind the bandages, the smell of damp, open flesh growing stronger with each turn. Langly made small noises of complaint that grew into sharp expletives as his skin was exposed and the bandages caught on the crusts and scabs that had formed through them.  
  
Chaz shook his head. "Get water. We'll soak them off."  
  
Reid held out a hand. "Hand me the lidocaine, please."  
  
Chaz did so, and as Byers fetched water from the bathroom, watched Reid take Langly's hand on the first try, and rub the cream around the edge of the scorched symbol there.  
  
"It burns, damn it!" Langly complained, and Reid blew on the treated skin, eliciting a shiver as if someone had run ice down Langly's spine. "... Do that again."  
  
"I thought you couldn't see," Chaz said, watching Reid gently work the cream into Langly's shoulder.  
  
"I can't. I also don't need to. I know exactly where these are and what shape they are." Reid blew on one of the marks on Langly's shoulder and then moved on to the next. "I told you, I was having nightmares. I saw this -- I saw the marks in my dream, except they were healed, then, and a very strange colour, like the scars had been dyed. Almost a magenta, but not."  
  
"Violant?"  
  
"No, there was nothing violent about the dream. It was just... deeply disturbing."  
  
"No, violant, with an A," Langly corrected, before Chaz could. "It's a colour. One of the seven colours of the Neathbow, that are rumoured not to exist on the Surface, but 'like magenta but not' is probably violant. Little more into viric and gant, myself, but still completely confused how you people don't have basic colours."  
  
Byers worked around Reid's hands, loosening the bandages and peeling them out of the way amid the hail of expletives from Langly.  
  
"I'm told the sun is different here," Reid said, quietly, daubing cream around each symbol, as Byers exposed them. "It makes sense that a different star would have a somewhat different light-- but, no. Things that came with me look the same as I remember."  
  
"They're visible wavelengths that you don't get naturally on the surface, as I understand it," Byers offered, trying to get the bandage unstuck from a particularly thick crust. "And they're definitely different wavelengths. Viric may look like a green, but green light doesn't make plants grow like that. We only perceive it as a green because that's what the eye can make of it."  
  
"But, back to the absolute agony that I'm in," Langly panted, as Byers stopped tugging at the bandage for a moment, "what in Hell makes you think this is about my uncle? Besides the Correspondence that's apparently all over me. I'm not convinced that's related. I mean, not the way you think it is. I did just agree to take up the work I inherited. The obligations of the position have landed, and if that really is Correspondence, maybe it's just the Halved marking me like we think it did my uncle."  
  
"Langly, do you even have an uncle?" Chaz asked, picking up the bowl of water so he could sit on the bedside table.  
  
"What are you talking about? Of course I have an uncle. I inherited the house from him, and the lifetime obligation to a Judgement."  
  
"Byers and Frohike thought the other Lord Langley was the last of his line. And technically, he was. He had no descendants. So, you inherited the Hall. Except nobody had ever heard of you." Chaz shrugged when Byers looked at him oddly. "And there's a ton of reasons that could have happened, like your uncle and whichever parent--"  
  
"My dad. He's my dad's brother." Langly gasped and cursed, swatting at Byers, as the bandage peeled away from a blister that had burst and festered.  
  
"Spencer? You said one of these was for infections, right?" Chaz dug through his pocket with one hand, while Byers swabbed away the worst of the mess.  
  
"Clean it as best you can, first, but wait a few minutes before you try. Let me see if I can numb it, first." This time, as Reid gently rubbed the cream into the edges of the damaged skin, Langly grabbed his hair and gripped it tightly enough to feel like it might come out by the roots. Not pulling in any direction, but definitely enough tension to make his eyes water. "You'll want the yellow tube, to judge by the smell of it, but the brown tube might not be a bad choice."  
  
Langly made pained and panicked noises verging on hysteria, his heel digging into the bed, one hand clutching at Reid's hair and the other at Byers's wrist. Chaz watched his face turn red, and wondered if Langly was going to pass out. There was nothing to do for it that wasn't already being done. The pain would stop soon. But, Chaz wondered why this, of all of them, had gotten so badly infected so quickly. Obviously, given the state of the parlour, the bandages had been changed several times since the night before, and it had only been one day. The swelling made it difficult to work out the detail of the sigil, but he was fairly certain he could make out suggestions of 'circle' or 'orbit' or maybe 'revolve' and a marker for repeating or returning. There were a couple of things it could be, but every variation on 'repeating the circle' gave him chills, in the current context.  
  
And then, Langly's fingers suddenly relaxed, his hand coming down to stroke Reid's cheek as he had during his moment of madness, earlier. "Whatever this is, I will pay you in chorister nectar and Navaratine gems, if you bring me more of it."  
  
" _Langly!_ " Byers complained, looking particularly put out.  
  
"What? It's not like I can't afford it. There's a dozen casks that I know about in the laundry cupboard, and I'm pretty sure we have a chorister hive in the ninth attic, or at least we did last year. It's not like we _don't have enough_."  
  
"It's just a few Echoes, I'm sure," Reid protested, knowing something was a lot more wrong than he was prepared to admit, when he didn't want to peel his own skin off, at Langly's touch.   
  
"Echoes! Echoes are the one thing we can't do. There's no Bazaar here. No Masters." Langly shook his head, forgetting the gesture would go unseen by the one it was directed at. "Take the gems. I'm sure you can find somebody to take them off your hands. And take the honey, too. You can never have too much honey."  
  
Byers sighed and glanced at Chaz. "Go ask Frohike for the s--" He looked at the bowl in Chaz's hands. "Nevermind. I'll do it."  
  
"So, while we're waiting for him to come back with the salt you're going to regret later, back to your family." Chaz shifted, tucking a foot between the edge of the mattress and the bed frame.  
  
"My parents were Tackety homesteaders out by Port Avon. They raised dairy goats on a rock in the ass-end of the Reach, and they expected me to do the same." Langly shrugged one shoulder, the thumb on his other hand still absently stroking Reid's cheek, as if he were distractedly petting a cat. "Did I have an uncle? Obviously I did. I kind of inherited his infinite mansion, so I must have had an uncle. Not that my dad ever talked about family, except for the part where I was apparently _disgracing_ ours. Turned seventeen and took off for New Winchester. The next thing I know, I'm selling honey at a poetry thing, and Launcelot, over here, drags me and Doohickey into what turns out to be revolutionary opposition to Albion's latest attempt to poison the Tacketies into submission. I'm like what, was I twenty? So, we spent some time in King's Idyll, writing the exactly what we're famous for. And, then this devil shows up with a stack of paper as long as my arm and tells me I inherited this place from my uncle. Have you seen the paintings? I don't look anything like the guy. But, I guess we're some kind of related on my dad's side, because the devil knew I was the new Lord of Langley Hall, and he said it wouldn't have worked if we weren't both... what'd he say, Byers? Something about lineage, something about blood. I don't know, I was three days awake playing Parabolan chess with the Rubbery Master. So, now I'm here. There. That's my family and how I got here. That's it. That's all I know. _Frohike_ knew the old Lord Langley, but I never even heard of him until he was dead."  
  
Byers came back from the parlour as quietly as he could and pressed a pad against the festering sigil on Langly's chest. Langly looked down as if he could see, and just sat like that, a moment.  
  
"Is that salt?"  
  
"I will admit I was expecting a lot more screaming and thrashing," Byers admitted, after a moment.  
  
"There may still be," Reid told him, head tipped into Langly's palm. "Just not yet. He _will_ feel that, eventually."  
  
"You don't happen to have any Sixth City lotions and potions that would do a better job, do you?" Byers asked.  
  
"No, I'm fairly certain I know what you're trying to do, and I'm not carrying anything that would do it better. He's going to lose skin, though, if you keep it on too long."  
  
"He's going to lose that skin either way," Chaz pointed out. "The question is how much of what's under the skin is going to go with it."  
  
"More than enough," Langly drawled. "Look, are you done poking me, yet? Because I've got questions, and you don't have answers, and maybe the answers are somewhere in this house, and maybe, _Villette_ , you're not telling me something."  
  
"I'm only slightly less confused than you are, and that might be an illusion." One could almost hear the shrug in Chaz's words.  
  
"Then tell me why in Hell you think his 'kitchen accident' has anything to do with me." The quotes around the words were audible.  
  
"Because it wasn't a kitchen accident," Reid admitted, finally. "I didn't believe that written words were _that kind_ of dangerous. Politically dangerous? Dangerous in the wrong hands? Absolutely. But, the idea that the page would literally burst into flames--"  
  
"He tried to copy my tattoo," Chaz explained, tipping his head apologetically at Reid, who couldn't see him. "No, you didn't tell me, but I recognised the shape, when I helped you re-bandage it. I know that one pretty well. I see it every day. And that looks exactly like a Correspondence burn -- hottest on the lines, with lesser burns where the base material and the stylus caught. I did that enough times. It won't scar."  
  
"He might scar," Langly argued. "He's not half--"  
  
"Come on, Langly, I've seen enough Correspondence burns. He's not going to scar."  
  
"Fine. Great. Good for him. But you already told me most of that, and it's not what I'm asking. Can I take a bath, before we figure out what his Correspondence burns have to do with the Correspondence burning its way _out_ of my skin?" Langly scratched at an unburned bit of skin on his ribs. "I've been in bandages since last night and now that it doesn't hurt, everything itches."  
  
"I'd keep the salt on longer, but if it's taped well enough..." Reid leaned in. "Let me see--"  
  
"No," Chaz and Byers said, at the same time, in the same tone.  
  
"Right. Right." Reid held up his hands. "In my bag, there's two rolls of tape, and one of them is waterproof. I'm just not sure how well it will stick to unwashed skin, or that there's enough room between the edge of the inflammation and the next burn to attach it properly."  
  
"So, ah... With this ... thing... If I take a bath, does that mean you're taking it with me?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter for a few weeks! Posting should resume in April, assuming I have internet access!


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